Product Description
The Otter Tail Review, originating from Otter Tail County, the "geographic crossroads" of Minnesota, is an anthology of regional folklore and cultural history. Featuring fiction, poetry and essays from such well-known Minnesota authors as Bill Holm, Winona LaDuke and Robert Bly-- who contributes two original poems-- as well as hitherto unpublished story-tellers, ranging from age 11 to 91, the Otter Tail Review conveys a strong and vivid sense of place. Its themes run the gamut from early settlement to a community s coming of age, from earth s labor to simple pleasures, and its stories are told in unique, genuine voices. The present collection is the first of a biannual series.Profits from sales of the Otter Tail Review are dedicated to library and literacy programs in the Upper Midwest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Voices of the Land
The Otter Tail Review does an outstanding job of recording distinctive, real voices from Otter Tail County, Minnesota. Particularly poignant are the stories of early hardship (teaching in a one-room schoolhouse at forty below, picking glacial rocks from a farm field), leavened by such images as a boatload of pastors' wives hanging their drenched undergarments on gooseberry bushes! It's also wonderful to see more work from Robert Bly, a master of our time. The stories are tastefully selected and carefully, even lovingly edited. Here's hoping that Mr. Rundquist will compile a Volume Two! ... Read more

Product Description
"More than a dictionary of concepts in physical geography, this book includes a variety of analyses reaching back to origins of terms, making the work of interest to intellectual historians. The search for the intellectual genesis of each term, its development, usage, and change in meaning is accomplished with brevity and clarity. References and sources of additional information accompany each entry and provide readers with the opportunity to further their inquiry. . . . Highly recommended for upper-division and graduate students and general readers" Choice ... Read more

Product Description

Dieses umfassende Handbuch für die effiziente Gestaltung und Abwicklung von Projekten bietet Praktikern eine systematische Übersicht über alle Projektphasen, eine eingehende Darstellung der einzelnen Projektschritte, ausführliche Handlungsempfehlungen und eine umfangreiche Sammlung von erprobten Methoden und Instrumenten. Die Erfolgsfaktoren werden im Detail geschildert, dabei werden auch komplexe Themen wie Führung, Teamarbeit und Konfliktlösungen ausführlich behandelt. Der kompakte Projektkompass vorn im Buch erleichtert die Übersicht, Tabellen und Checklisten unterstützen die Umsetzung einer effizienten Projektplanung und -steuerung in die Praxis. Kurzum: das optimale Nachschlagewerk für Projektauftraggeber, Entscheidungsträger, Projektmanager, Controller und Projektmitarbeiter in Industrie, Dienstleistungssektor und öffentlicher Verwaltung sowie Studierende an Fachschulen, Fachhochschulen und Universitäten.

Product Description
Friday is a secret courier operating over a near-future Earth in which America has become Balkanized into dozens of independent states. She finds herself on shuttlecock assignment, surviving one scrape after another. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (97)

Friday
Love the book, love the author.A book about war and discrimination, how timely.

One Of Heinlein's Best Books
This is an unforgettable book.It rates in my top 10 science fiction books of all time.

Gentleman, (and ladies), please be seated.
Among the top hard science fiction stories I've read, this was one of the first, and the only one I'd finished, upon first picking the paperback up, in 7th grade. I found it in a classroom at school, in 1982, and have it to this day, and the hardback, and the Samantha Eggar, abridged audiobook. I look forward to getting the unabridged version.

Interesting to note the similarities between this work and Bladerunner, as they both appeared in '82. Since it likely took Heinlein at least a year to write this huge tome, with input from his wife, inspiration for Lazarus Long's wife, I would guess the reverse-engineered BR, as opposed to its source material, likely was co-authored by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples (re-writes) with no idea as to the similar nature of APs versus replicants.

I would like to bring up Mr. and Mrs. Joe Greene, mentioned as one of Marjorie's ancestral sources. A previous reviewer mentioned not being able to think of any other pre-existing characters besided Baldwin,in Heinlein's ouevre. However, if you've read Gulf, the previous Baldwin adventure, then you've read about Mr. and Mrs. Greene, who helped Baldwin pull off a minor revolution. I believe Stone Pillow, unpublished(?) may have had one or more of them in it.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls also has a direct connection: unless Heinlein was in the habit of replicating character descriptions upon unrelated people, the protagonist (eyepatch, cane) Strikes me as a parallel dimension version of Baldwin, since the character is a d-hopper. Just a thought. plus, the respiratory illness afflicting the space station the man ports into is the same one which laid Friday low for a period of time, on a space station. The same one?

One last note. A late 1987 sci-fi film, Star Quest: Beyond The Rising Moon, re-edited and cg-enhanced three years ago, into Outerworld, was heavily inspired by Friday, though with major changes. Check the similarities:

Pentan, an AP with a six-letter name, like Friday, is used as a courier, assassin, and seductress. At the beginning, she ambushes two returning Norwegian Interworld space couriers in Star City, North Africa, relieving them of their cargo, a data storage unit, with a pen which shoots a disruptor beam, severing the security lock on the box. She then interfaces, with a tiara, with the data unit carried by one of the two human carrier pigeons, soaking up info on a crashed alien ship, a Tesseran artifact, in a star system several light years away. It's the second such ship, found by a Norwegian Interworld satellite. Tesseran culture revolutioized humanity's relationship with space, much like Shipstone crystals changed the lives on humans in Heinlein's book.

Her corporate employer, Kuriyama Ent., sends her minder, John Moesby, to meet her. After leaving him on a monorail platform, Moesby activates the 'stroker', which will cause a neural implant to kill her by edema within 72 hours; to prevent this, she needs to travel to Inisrfe, a planet in the Halcyon system.

She hires Harold Brickmann, a spacer, to fly her. After beating two bruisers, Mr. Beaufuss and Tebrook, sent to get money Brickmann owes (legitimately) to their boss, Pentan then saves him from her boss's thugs, led by Moesby, who is sent packing by Pentan after she kills two troopers by hand. She disposes of the corpses, sending Brickmann into a state of mild panic and shock; Brickmann goes to call the police on Pentan, but is chased down by a trooper. Pentan runs up behind the thug, chasing Brickmann across a footbridge, judo chops him on the throat (sound familiar?), and brings down Kyle, one of her teachers in a flying car, piloted by a Kuriyama trooper, with the dead thug's machinegun. Upon takeoff, she levels with him as to her genetic origins, later prompting a memory sequence of her training and presentation before her new boss.

She and Brickmann travel to Inisfre, followed by Takashi Kuriyama's carrier, the Promethian, hauling several Tulwar fighters. Brickmann watches Pentan as she sleeps, making sure she doesn't die from a massive cerebral hemorrhage kickstarted by the handheld device Moesby used in Star City. Pentan is freed of the stroker by her ethics and philosophy teacher, Robert Thorton and his wife Rachael, who run a terraforming operation set up on the out-of-the-way planet by Kuriyama as punishment for being a subversive influence within the corporation and Kuriyama's former conscience, which the CEO no longer needs. Pentan's defection is seen as a betrayal of Kuriyama's view of her as his personal ideal. She finds the location of the second Tesseran ship, cons Brickmann into flying her there, for a cut, and they jet, literally.

Kuriyama lands on Inisfre, and takes over the complex, questioning Thorton while his soldiers search the complex for clues of Pentan's next move, then blows the ecolab up (dir. cut) with the Thortons still inside. Pentan and Brickmann disable two Tulwars sent to apprehend them, then escape the system.

Travelling through hyperspace, Pentan schools Brickmann on herdeadly attributes, then they have sex, at Brickmann's behest, believing he can draw her out with a display of trust and intimacy; but Pentan, a genetically stuntedAP, can't experience a full range of emotions like a normal human, so she gives Brickmann what she thought he wanted: sex, with no strings attached. This blows Brickmann's mind, so the two stay apart for the reaminder of the trip, though Pentan, from within the ship's shower, watches Brickmann, fascinated, infatuated, and maybe even a little saddened, by him.

Their final destination is Elysium, a planet further into the core of the spiral arm, where the crashed alien spaceship, the source of much of the space technology enjoyed by humanity, lies, unclaimed. Unfortunately, Pentan can't claim it, as her kind are unrecognized by the law (!), so Brickmann must make the claim for her, for which he'll receive a hefty cut.

Once they make planetfall, they find the massive ship relatively quickly; within it is a pocket void, with flying blips of light, a rocky surface, (presumably the planet surface sticking through the interior), and a startling, truly wonderful sight: a galaxy, floating in space, within the ship. Possibly a doorway to the galaxy, or universe exists within the ship, revealing the source of unlimited power for such an ancient alien construct. Truly beathtaking!

Unfortunately, here comes Kuriyama and his small corporate army. Moesby orders Brickmann's death and sends Pentan away, while Kuriyama returns to the Promethian. Pentan then double-crosses her employers, hijacking a Tulwar, blowing up a few more, startling the pilots holding Brickmann, who, in turn, kills them. He and Pentan make it to atmosphere, ditching and then destroying two Tulwars, then to space, where Pentan turns the tide on Kuriyama and Moesby, trusting Brickmann to help, fighting Kuriyama's spacers, including her flight trainer, George, in an asteroid field (newly added for the spec. ed.), before Moesby forces the gunnery officer to shoot a Tulwar carrying a nuke. Which nukes them... Douche...

In the ensuing explosion, Pentan is wiped from Brickmann's radar; despondent, he returns to the surface of Elysium, resigend to his fate of being alone, until he hears the sound of engines... Pentan... She and Brickmann can be intimate again, but she's still a cold fish, psychologically. The ship is theirs, now.

Quiet a departure fron the source material which, in all honesty, was used (they've never credited it) merely as a framework upon which the novice writer/director, former fx tech Philip Cook (in a fantastic debut), managed to hang a tight piece of cinema (shot in a Baltimore warehouse! ),which never gave way to a sequel (pity). Its low/no budget appeal is cemented by the acting and thoughtful writing and directing. It's a gem of the small screen, and one which should satisfy fans of pre digital vid sci-fi, and fans of Heinlein who will pick up on the little details, if they pay attention, which will be rewarded in short order.

ONE OF HEINLEIN'S BEST WORKS, NO MATTER WHAT THE YEAR!!
This is my FAVORITE HEINLEIN book, 2nd Only to GLORY ROAD!!For those who condemn this work, perhaps they haven't grasped all the concepts behind it?Although it is true that Heinlein's early works are his best, this IS ONE OF HIS BEST BOOKS, BAR NONE!I first read this book over 20 years ago, not long after it was first published, and I am HAPPY to read it again today in July 2010!I have give COUNTLESS paperback copies of this book to friends throughout the years, as it is one story I most certainly can read and re-read.If you are debating on whether to buy or read this book, then Buy the paperback, or borrow from a library!For less than the price of a Movie ticket for 1, this story will grab you from the start, and PULL YOU THROUGH THE ENTIRE BOOK.... You can't go wrong with this book.It is one of the books I Always Keep on my shelf.... It's a GOOD READ!

Flawed--yet good; one of the few late Heinlein novels that works
It's a generally-held tenet that the novels of Robert Heinlein are better before 1970 than afterwards; with few exceptions, his earlier works are his masterworks. Even some of his juvenile fiction novels (in particular, Tunnel in the Sky) are superior to some of the last novels he wrote. "Friday" is an exception. (Well, so is "Time Enough for Love", published in '73.)

Friday is a sort of "bildungsroman" or coming-of-age novel, with a female protagonist. While Heinlein attempted to write a number of female characters who were fiercely self-reliant, highly competent and independent, he never really features a woman as a main character. I don't consider this a flaw; many authors really don't "get" the opposite sex and their opposite gender characters tend to be dressed in a sort of "literary drag." In fact, Friday, who is a genetically enhanced created human being (presaging cloned or eugenically bred humans) is sometimes more male than female. Her sex drive, which is usually in overdrive, swings both ways, and she only gives a passing nod to heterosexual preferences as she hops into bed with anyone slightly willing at the moment. This is explained away as both part of her genetic enhancement and an effect of her psychological flaw, which is a dependency and lack of self-esteem caused by being raised as a non-person (enhanced humans or "AP's" are property, not legal persons in the balkanized and degenerate Earth states) and her upbringing in a commercial creche rather than with parents.

Friday is a courier who is expected to deliver sensitive information across turbulent national lines frequently in battle zones or at least in politically unstable situations. She works for "Kettle Belly" Baldwin, who is a familiar character (the charismatic commanding officer or professor or other elder wise man who shows up time and again in Heinlein's works.) Baldwin advises Friday to eventually migrate off-Earth and acts as a mentor for the insecure young woman.

Her adventures getting through her last mission for Baldwin and her subsequent adventures culminating in migration are well-written and exciting. Sometimes the novel meanders but it gets on course. The end, though a bit rushed, I think and containing a major flaw (don't want to give it away, but her mistake comes on the heels of her work as a brilliant savant, so you'd think she'd...but ...no, I won't tell you but you'll see it, I'm sure, as you finish the book.)

Aside from the gratuituous but non-graphic sex and a lot of sniggering lesbian scenes which are more male fantasy than a true attempt at creating a bisexual character, this book has plenty of action and a lot of good elements, including a list of symptoms that characterize a moribund society (think; this was written 40 years ago and it's seeming all too true.) Well worth reading and probably the last good novel Heinlein wrote. ... Read more

Product Description
Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler presents
Sounds Like Murder
Original, unabridged mysteries available on audio

1 cassette / 110 minutes
Unabridged
Read by Darrell Larson

"This is old-fashioned story-telling at its best.Interesting and involving tales from some of the masters of mysteries."
-Michael Connelly, author of Blood Work


Three thousand acres next to Branson, Missouri, is a gold mine to the wealthy and eccentric Sir Reginald Hollister."Clean American Fun" could be the biggest theme park north of Disneyland.There's one catch: when a woman is found murdered, all eyes and evidence point to Hollister.But when two secret service agents arrive on the scene, suddenly politicians, actors, and an irreverent revered all have reason to dispense with "Clean American Fun."

Other titles in the SOUNDS LIKE MURDER series include:
Driving Lessons by Ed McBain
The Case of the Scottish Tragedy by June Thompson
The Poster Boy by Stephen Solomita
The Sedgemoor Stranger by Peter Lovesey
A Tale About a Tiger by S.J. RozanAmazon.com Review
Christopher Newman's short mystery Clean American Funmixes greed, corruption, lust, and murder to create an interestinglywicked plot set smack dab in the middle of the Americanheartland. This down-home setting suits the everyman's voice ofnarrator and actor Darrel Larson just fine as he calmly spins Newman'smurderous tale.

The story begins as a ruthless English billionairestarts buying up property around Branson, Missouri, stepping on a lotof toes in the process. The local folks don't like this interloper onebit, and when the evidence in a particularly nasty murder points tothe town's new and unwelcome neighbor, they like him even less. "Thecrime of which Hollister stood accused was heinous no matter how yousliced it: Amber Billingsley, a senior-to-be at Branson High, wasfound nude in a culvert near Table Rock Dam. Dead by strangulation."Before long, the media, politicos, and clergy stir things up, and ittakes some serious sleuthing to uncover the whole sordid truth.

Larson uses his voice to its fullest, giving a satisfactoryperformance. He sometimes struggles with some of the character'saccents, but since Newman has thrown everyone from a backwater Bubbato a British aristocrat into his melting pot of a cast, few narratorswouldn't. (Running time: two hours, one cassette) --GeorgeLaney ... Read more

Product Description
The national bestselling saga of Robert Silverberg's stunning imagination continues in the first new hardcover Majipoor novel in nearly a decade. As a prequel to Silverberg's earlier Majipoor novels. Sorcerers of Majipoor provides a deep, dark vision for the background of the conflict inLord Valentine's Castle and Valentine Pontifex.

Treachery and wizardry run rampant under the reign of the mighty Pontifex, as both the rightful and the unworthy heirs to the throne anxiously await his demise. Korsibar, son of the current Coronal, plots with his twin sister and ambitious companions to seize the power ofthe Coronal when his father ascends to the throne of the Pontifex.

But the burdens of the crown and scepter exact more of a price than Korsibar is prepared to pay. His rival fights to take his appointed place as keeper of his beloved Majipoor...and to resbackse order to the utter chaos that has befallen their world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Three-and-a-half stars, perhaps. The weakest in the series, but still Silverberg.
I've been enthusiastically rereading this series during the last year or two after deciding that Silverberg was one of the favorite authors of my youth who I still actually enjoy. I actually did not remember much about this conclusion to the trilogy-- particularly compared to the first two books which stayed quite vividly in my head.

There's a reason for that, I think. Valentine Pontifex is the weakest of the three first books. Although I can see how Silverberg needed it to create an ending, it doesn't function very well as a novel on its own. The major problem, as far as I can see, is the span of time covered by the book. It dilutes the action and makes it quite difficult to care about the characters in an immediate way. It's a tricky thing to pull off in the best of situations, but here it does not really work at all. I think that this is because the first two books were much more about characters as they function in discrete moments in time. Too much water flowing under the bridge here.

There are definitely good moments. The stories of the people on the land are pure Silverberg. I was also delighted to see the rise of Hissune as a character. I am not sure that Silverberg has it in him to write a really bad book. Just a shame compared to the first two from the Majipoor sequence.

Worth reading if you've made it this far, but limit your expectations.

Your disappointment is not with the book, but with the man.
I can't see how anyone who read the first two books would expect fireworks from Valentine or Silverberg.This book is perfect to me because it stays true to everything that we've previously learned about Majipoor and its inhabitants.To see how someone behaves under pressure is to understand who they are.Here is Valentine acting not only as leader, but as a man, a human being who isn't ready to be "buried alive," a person who finds it difficult to release the reins of power even if he isn't sure what to do with them.I loved the process of learning more about him.This book is more about the character than the plot and that is why the ending might seem unsatisfying to some, because it isn't about politics or power or even logical plausibility, it's about closing an emotional circle.

Super Reader
Valentine is still a nice guy, but not all that keen on the whole ruling thing, even those he has to.He has to try and deal with the shapeshifting metamorph plot to take over, their guerilla tactics, and other problems of government.

He has drifted from his friends, and the metamorphs are not the only strange beings he has to come to understand.Certainly not as good as the first book.

Valentine Ponderfex
For all its ponderous, slow pace, I still found this a very enjoyable read. Perhaps because that marveous world of Marjipoor
continues to have the ability to draw you in.

Here we have Coronal Valentine simply being his gentle, persistant self. Underneath the sweet exterior, Valentine's actually rather strong- but he still frustrates because we want to see some action! But Silverberg's ongoing theme throughout the Marjipoor novels has been universal acceptance, forgiveness, and love.

Valentine has to cope with those dastardly Shapeshifters and their nasty plots to take over the world by way of plagues, horrible mutant species, etc. that plunge the world into chaos.
Add in a strange new religious cult, Valentine's horror of becoming Pontifex and the Labyrinth---and you have the new plot for Valentine Pontifex.

Sometimes I've thought Silverberg has an abundance of imagination when it comes to world-building and description- but little in the way of human nature. Here we have a huge world with people who struggle all their lives to reach the top level of the Isle Of Dreams, yet Hissune's mother just steps right in and takes over the job of Lady Of The Isle. Just as Hissune just steps in and takes over as Coronal - though he's still wet behind the ears. Not very realistic- and a marvelous setting for some great conflict.

Instead, we are given scenario after scenario of good-hearted, hard working characters who are ruined, made destitute, or commit suicide due to seeing their life's work destroyed. While Valentine goes hither and thither, leaving dead bodies in his wake.

Even so- the scenarios are fascinating, Hissune is fun to root for, the Sea Dragons are a new interesting element and- given Valentine's nature, the resolution should not be surprising.

I'll take a Marjipoor book any day over most of the science fiction/fantasy that's out there. Not too many writers can pull me in to where I forget I'm reading a book. It's pure escape reading- and just a lot of fun.

Every trilogy has an ending, but why end like this?
For very page I read, there was at least two I skipped. The previous twos books were great, but sadly, they had to be capped off with this.

The charcters lost their charm, and there was only one I was interested in, but since Silverberg suddenyl changed his style from one character persepective to all, sadly, that one character came around all to few times.

This book also pocesses one of the worst endings I have ever read. To think that I forced myself all the way though those long pages only to see that as my reward. One word for that ending, horrificly pathetic. All right, that was two.

Back to the characters. Poorly developed, and if I hadn't known them before, I think I would have rooted for the antagonists to kill them off, just for the excitement. Its what Silverberg should have done, or something like it. This book was duller than lectures. It was like, almost reading a very unrealistic history noevl, where the you strangely get to experience the hourly introspectives of the characters that NO ONE CARES ABOUT.

Personally, I would have rather done my homework, but my own pride in the fact that I've never not finished a book kept me from that. And while the first two books only took me a week or so to read, this one took twice that, despite the fact its shorter. (If there wouldn't have been the boring introspectives and side stories, I might have finished it in a minute.)

So, if you are a fan of the other books, you don'thave to get this book. Have someone just tell you how it ends, and spare yourself three hundred some odd other pages. If you haven't read the other two books, read them, its worth it, and then decide for yourself wether you want to bore yourself to death. My advice, find it in the library, for five bucks are better spent elsewhere. ... Read more