Forward-market Books

I bought this book here on Amazon aeons ago, then just to boost my total to get free shipping. I thought "Neat, OV10s!I'll read it someday..." Had I only known what awaited me, I would have read it first and maybe thrown the balance of my order in the trash! It seems an awful lot of really visceral writing has come out of the Viet Nam war, maybe it's proximity to so many of us, I don't know what, but this is a truly moving, exciting, action-packed and emotional reading experience! I would put it on par with "Chickenhawk" and "Flying Through Midnight". Buy it, read it, recommend it to others, love and read it again! Thanks for writing it Colonel Tom!

Really great read, a real page turner, funny. About a newby covey pilot who turns into the old man. His crew chief cringes every time he takes off because he brings back more ruined planes than anyone. One of the best FAC books out there.

Tom has done an outstanding job of telling the tales of FAC work in Vietnam and the secret war in Laos. This book is a must read for anybody with a sense of patriotism and who is a pilot and really cares abot "getting the job done". Excellent book and story.

Thanks Tom

Tom Yarborough (TY)has written an exelent book about his time as a FAC with the 20 TASS in Da Nang during the vienam war.
It is well written, very exiting and I had a hard time putting it down, the author dos a great job putting the reader in the backseat and you can almost taste the adrenelin and smell the sweat.
Go buy this book, you cannot miss out
Bo Hermansen

A rare combination a true warrior, who survived some of the most dangerous flying of the Vietnam War and a highly literate author. One wonders where our nation finds the quiet Paladins of the 20'Th century.

At one level a warrior's story of near hand to hand combat from the air with a fully committed enemy. The evolution of the author's transition from a member of the Air Force to his very close identification with the Special Forces who operated under his wing adds to the story. Live at the Muff Divers Club also brings color to the tale. As a war story it has the same ring of aggressive sacrifice of other great warriors.

As a psychological study it is a great story of the magnetism / repulsion of war and the warrior culture.

Finally, it is a story of flying on the very edge. As a pilot what is so stunning is the difficulty of the conditions under which they operated. Operating under ceilings a fraction of that required for civilian pilots while performing a difficult mission and finally trying to stay alive stretches the reader's ability to understand. Most non pilots will take for granted the brief description of descending into cloud covered valleys, far from navigation facilities as another day at the office. Far from it, some of the most dangerous and challenging things a pilot can be called upon to do. But that's just for starters; those of us in civilian life almost always have the ability to climb back though the clouds to sunshine when we are overloaded. However, it must be a totally different experience to be flying against a dedicated enemy while trapped under the overcast. The equivalent of fighting on the edge of a cliff.

.The reader is fortunate that the author brings a great story and the skill to tell the story. Even more of a gift is that the author lived to tell the story of those who did not return.

Very easy to understand. IMO, it is the only book that is at par with, if not better than, John C. Hull's "Options, Futures And Other Derivatives."

Strongly recommended for everyone with even an oblique interest in the study of derivatives.

If Shreve and Karatzas is/are too dense, read this instead.

With all due respect, this book should inspire the Broadies and Dermans of the world to write such textbooks themselves, and the Sundaresans and Glassermans of the world to (also) cater to less scholarly minds (such as the undersigned).

-Kunal Kunde

I got this book few months back, though little pricy but someone recommended it. I found it to be a wonderful blend of the economics and mathematics of derivatives pricing. After reading the book, i was comfortable with :
understanding of derivatives pricing models &
derivatives markets

I strongly recommend people giving their FRM, CFA and / or SOA certifications to get their hands on this book.

You would like it. A good reference book. Only issue is it is little too heavy, hence you cannot lie down and read it for a long time ;-)

As an MBA student at Kellogg School, I find this book is concise and easy to read. It also teaches me the intuition in derivatives and asset pricing. As it has both basic and advanced material, it can be used as a reference book as well.

As financial instruments become ever more complex, McDonald's book gives a systematic treatment of the most common forms of derivatives. Providing a unified etymology that can help you understand how they work.

He groups options (puts and calls) with forward contracts like zero coupon bonds. Through numerous simple payoff graphs, as well as explanatory accompanying text, the ideas are easily grasped. The book starts with these ideas in its early chapters. Then it builds on them, to illustrate associated and often more elaborate constructs, as in insurance strategies for hedging.

Nor is the discussion confined to minimising one's risk. There is an alternative method, of deliberately speculating on volatility, for example.

The modelling of futures and options pricing is dealt with in detail. Including the seminal Black-Scholes formula and related analysis. The assumptions behind Black-Scholes are examined in detail, given the crucial influence of this on many types of pricing. The treatment gets rather advanced, invoking ideas like Monte Carlo simulations of stock prices.

The text is well suited for a graduate program in finance.

I was recommended this text book by the study material I was using to prepare the acturial exam FM. Then I came to check this book here and I found out that the price here is way too much higher. With this price, you can buy both the text book and its solution mannual in Actex Mad River with free UPS shipping. Hope this will help.

This is by far the best book I have read on Vietnam. It takes you to the air with the pilot like you are in the back seat. It's hard hitting and lots of action. I highly recommend it.

This book is excellent! But, I am biased. Col Tom Yarborough was my Professor of Aerospace Studies at Indiana University and a major reason why I joined the Air Force. He a great and inspiring man. I highly recommend this book by a true hero.

Anyone who is an armchair flyboy or military aviation buff will find this book to be one of the best. Col. Yarborough's writing style keeps you on the edge of your chair as you follow his incredible hair raising missions in Veitnam and Laos. Best on all this is not fiction but the real item.

I read a lot of Vietnam pilot's memoires but these are definitely the best. Here I found absolutly the most hair rising combat sorties in treetop level under enemy fire written with such speed, that I could not stop reading. I don't know Tom Yarborough personally, but I really started to like that guy when reading his book. If I should ever be in such a stressy enviroment like Nam, having a guy like him as squadron mate should make things a lot more bearable.

Excellent first hand story of flying the OV-10 as a Forward Air Controller in Vietnam. Especially exciting because of the nature of the mission: supporting the infil and exfil of long range patrols. This story has only recently been declassified and is now told in a vivid and thrilling first hand account by one of the most decorated Forward Air Controllers from the Vietnam war. If you like flying and fighting you'll love this story.

Fresh insights into the marketing game! That is what this book offers. These are things you don't learn in school - you learn by doing and experience. Lots of sound and practical advice that any sales or marketeer can benefit from. If you don't think so, read the chapter on Trade Shows and then go to any trade show in your area and see what Paul is talking about. It will open your eyes! I highly recommend this book to any and all marketeers, junior and senior alike.

Paul DiModica's newest masterpiece identifies in a comprehensive step by step approach the key elements essential to distance your business from the competition. The principles and tools found in "Value Forward Marketing" communicate in simple terms how to develop and deliver strong buyer content and value up front, educate buyers, and capture more qualified leads. No matter which business you are in, "Value Forward Marketing" will instill the importance of connecting marketing methods and sales processes with the strategic pulse of your organization.

Business can be a complicated game and business advisors with an academic bent can make it even seem more complicated. That is why business advisors like Paul DiModica are so refreshing. Just as he had done for the areas of sales and sales management, Mr. DiModica has distilled the essence of business-to-business marketing into a book that is simple and readable for a broad audience. Most importantly, he has clearly identified the business purpose of marketing: to generate qualified leads for sales! There is no "fluff" in this book, just straightforward business wisdom. Highly recommended for senior executives who want to grow their business in any economy.

Finally, a marketing book packed with actionable steps that I can start today to improve business performance. Mr. DiModica has created a book that should be a must read by all CEO's, business owners and marketing professionals. The Value Forward Marketing book walks you through, step by step, how to develop a powerful marketing strategy and program that will make you stand-out from your competitors and drive new business.

Everyone in business should read this book.

Many businesses are still using 20 year old marketing techniques that don't work in the 21st century. Mr. DiModica's Value Forward Marketing is an excellent resource for any company that wants to create more inbound leads, which is his definition of what an effective marketing program should accomplish. This is a book full of practical ideas that can be implemented today, not just theory and hype. This book is a must read for anyone that owns or runs a business and wants to grow their business to the next level

Giele is offering the best explanation going of why the suffrage movement succeeded when it did by highlighting the two strong bases for women's suffrage and showing the degree to which they diverged outside of this issue. She brings together scholarship arguing for one side of the other and convincingly argues that both were necessary to success. An important work.

I am just beginning to study green investing. Found this article accessible and informative. It gave me an overview of the market, and ideas of where to go from here. Substantive. Have just reread it and understood more. Just what I was looking for. Thank you.

And I loved being able to download it instantly!

I saw this movie years ago, probably right about when everyone else saw it. I think I may have liked the movie better. Of course, it had Kevin Spacey in it. I love him...

Anyway, back to the book... I got lost several times in it and had to figure out who was who. Too many characters with too many things going on.

Having said that, it was very touching and it makes me want to go out and do random things for people. The big question is... will I?

... and therein lies the problem.

:)

'Pay It Forward' is one of my favorite novels. Author Catherine Ryan Hyde does an excellent job of establishing the locale and the desolation surrounding the city of Atascadero, and the characters react to their environment in a way that I would consider authentic.

Arlene, Trevor's mother, is a little bit rough around the edges, and wonderfully written. Without spoiling the plot, let me just say that this is an exquisite story with a deeper meaning than one would find in most popular fiction.

This book is just awsome, I watched the movie several times and the book is just as good. I would recommand this book to anyone.It is not hard to read, but at certain times the author does jump a bit from one character to another.

The best book I have ever read- puts movie to shame (and very different from movie). I gave to all my family- it is life changing!

Book review by: Rahul Borkar
Pay it Forward by: Catherine Ryan Hyde is probably one of the best books I have ever read. It is a realistic fiction book. It is about a kid named Trevor who was given an assignment to do something that would change the whole world. Usually the teacher that gave this project his new and most favorite teacher Mr. St. Clair or Reuben not expecting whole world changing results. But Reuben soon saw Trevor really is going to change the world. Reuben was in the Vietnam War and had half of his face ruined and scared same with the rest of his body but not as badly. Later Arlene became very good friends with Reuben and they really got to know each other. Trevor was really glad because he really liked Reuben as a father although his father Ricky had been gone for a year.
Trevor's idea was very smart and considerate that it would change the WHOLE world. His idea (Pay it Forward) started as him helping three people. And after he helped those three people they helped three people and they help three and so forth. But bad things happened after Trevor helped his three people. One of them went to jail and one had died. Was there still hope left?
This could relate to anybody any day by doing small deeds. I really enjoyed Catherine Ryan Hyde's style of writing. She would build up a lot of suspense and let it out in a big event and start over. Her writing is not too descriptive and not too vague.
I really enjoyed this book because of the style of writing and because I found the story amazing. Many people have told me "That book is great, the book is too!" I took their advice and I am glad I did.

Last-written in the Foundation series, this book slots in chronologically close to the beginning, explaining some lose ends and providing more detail about Hari Seldon. Still not that good, but at least well-enough written to be readable without cringing.

I am a huge Asimov fan, but I have always been dissapointed by his later fiction, which never seems to have the life and tight plotting that his earlier stuff does. That is, untll AI read Forward the Foundation. Returning to the style of the original books, Forward the Foundation is a series of short stories, each separated by ten years, rather than a single narrative. And much like in the originals, it work very well.

I guess what I like most about the book is the way it ties up loose end left after Prelude to the Foundation. It also seems more in the spirit of the original than the other prequels and sequels. The characters all shine here, as is typical for any Asimov work. Particularly good in my opinion is the characterization of Emperor Cleon, who trun out to be a rather likable person after all.

Maybe not the best book to just pick up, but certainly a fitting end to the Foundation series and Asimov's brilliant career.

The last of Asimov's Foundation books, and the second of his Seldon prequels.

Forward the Foundation : Eto Demerzel - Isaac Asimov
Forward the Foundation : Cleon I - Isaac Asimov
Forward the Foundation : Dors Venabili - Isaac Asimov
Forward the Foundation : Wanda Seldon - Isaac Asimov
Forward the Foundation : Epilogue - Isaac Asimov


Seldon is robot replacement.

3.5 out of 5


Removing the boss.

3 out of 5


My wife's a dead robot killer.

3.5 out of 5


Another one bites the dust, lucky I have a useful granddaughter.

3 out of 5


Looking back.

3 out of 5

It's part of the great Foundation saga from I. Asimov.... i really enjoyed every word of it.... you must read the saga!..
This book explains a lot of the beginnings of psycohistory...

In terms of Asimov's writing, this is the last work exploring the Foundation; the copyright date is actually after his death. However, in terms of the Foundation chronology, it comes early on in the series of novels exploring the Foundation and Second Foundation. Over the past few months, I have felt a need to go back and reread the Asimov works again (it's been quite awhile since I last read these), and this review is one of the byproducts of that.

As some have noted, there is something of a contradiction here. By the time the Foundation series ends (with "Foundation and Earth"), the Foundation is kaput in terms of the future, and Galaxia is to take its place. So, to make his last novel a Hari Seldon novel is a bit strange. Still and all, though, this is a fascinating novel.

There are a couple other books that link the Robot series with the Foundation series. In some senses, this represents the apogee of that linkage, as we see in the first part of the novel, "Eto Semerzel." This character is a top advisor to King Cleon I, one of the last competent royals of the already declining Empire. And, oh boy, what a link is revealed in this segment to the Robot series.

There are three other main episodes, one focusing on Cleon himself; one is entitled "Dors Venabili"; the final part is "Wanda Seldon." Then, a very brief epilogue representing Hari Seldon's last moments. The varying parts of this novel are not seamlessly welded together. However, by the end of his career, Asimov was capable of creating characters (compare with the essentially lifeless, cardboard figures of the original Foundation trilogy). As a result, this work is fascinating in that it is also an index of Asimov's growth as a writer. He went from an academic teaching Chemistry (if memory serves) to a pretty skilled author.

Anyhow, the work is not tightly pulled together, but it is fascinating in its character development, its place in the Foundation series, its linking of the Robot series to the Foundation series. Surely not the best of the Foundation series, but one of the most intriguing.

Ok, its been 10 years or so since I read this first, and possibly only The Road by Cormac McCarthy had a more lasting effect on me after the first read, I knew I had just read something quite extraordinary. Then funnily enough, events in my life went on to mirror those in the book, which I didnt realise until I read it again and it just tore the guts right out of me. Yes, there is plenty wrong with this book, its a book of 2 halves etc etc. But they fit to make a whole greater than the sum of those 2 parts. Ok, no, I didnt go to Jeamland, or the future, but ultimately this is a book about love. he also loves his set pieces as well, you are reading a beautiful passage about the nature of love and loss (you know the one) and a little mental scroller is going though your mind like the one in Waynes World where it says "Oscar Scene" or something like that, but never the less, it is beautifuly realised and these passages articulate beautifully what sometimes you cant when your heart has been broken. Hmm. I lapped up MMS's other stuff, Spares, One of Us etc, and the like and good though they are, its just MMS re-writing Only Forward. That doesnt take away from the brilliance of this book though. I am wanting to read it again as I speak and I know its in a box in the shed, damn.

Stark is a troubleshooter who has a specialty in recovery of things that people can't find. In this case he is tasked to find a scientist.

However, it is not that simple, really, the City he lives in is very bizarre, indeed, with different parts being completely different and having completely different rules. As in rules of reality, more Cynosure or Wonderland than just the bad neighborhood or slum type of thing.

Didn't quite work for me, but is not bad.

The first thing a reader should know about this creation is that its not what it seems.
And what it seems to be, at first, is a light adventure through a future world filled with intresting gadgets, and intresting ways of life.
Something, though, just doesnt seem right.
Without giving away any parts of this beautiful story, i'll just tell you this: at some point, everything will change, as bigger things will surface, and everything will become much darker, much more serious, and this book will take a sharp turn towards the fantasy gener.
I'm giving this a 10\10(and its the only book to get that from me), highly recommended.

What a fascinating book.

I'm giving this one a good review because I thought that elements of only forward were greater than the sum of it's parts. As a collective, the novel really doesn't hold together all that well but when you examine it's finer pieces there are some really beautiful things at play here.

I picked up Only Forward because I am presently going back and reading all the Philip K Dick award winners. For those of you who don't know, the award is given each year for the best annual sci-fi novel that did not receive a hard cover publication. Dick never received a hardcover publication in his lifetime which was why the award was created. I've read some phenomenal books as a result, including one of my favorites 'Altered Carbon' by Richard K Morgan. Altered Carbon is brutal, hard-boiled, and very conventional cyberpunk and I think that when Michael Marshall Smith gave some of the readers who left bad reviews here a taste of something similar they fully expected him to run in that direction.

Instead, at almost exactly the halfway point, Only Forward slips right off the deep end. All of the conventional worlds and detail that Smith has established are eliminated and it's almost as though we start completely from scratch again. It's quite a leap of faith he makes with his readers to expect them to come along for the ride and I have to admit I found the next 75 or so pages to be a little bit of drudgery.

Eventually he started to reel me back in with characters and backstory that I found extremely compelling. Perhaps I was in just the right mood for it but the ending was a perfect pitch of sadness and satisfaction, despite the fact that (due to the unreliable narrator) Smith jammed a TON of exposition into the last 50 pages.

So I suppose I was finally able to suspend my disbelief enough to let the themes play out and just come along for the ride, though I can understand enough why some readers just couldn't. Upon reflection I found that the sci-fi aspects of the book were actually pretty conventional and cliche, almost satirically so. It's the plunge and what follows after which was really unique and satisfying.

There is a lot here that DOESN'T work though. While I found the Douglass Adams-y aspects of the writing entertaining (the bug finder made me laugh out loud), eventually they just dissapear and also it just DIDN'T fit together with the brutal and hard boiled aspects of the first half. To go from humorous jokes about the main characters shirt to women defecating on each other (an isolated element here but still) was just too much of a stretch for me. Also some of the material suffers because Smith just attempts to do too many things at once and it becomes unclear exactly WHAT he's shooting for. If the cyperpunk-ish city is meant as sci-fi than aspects of it (the cat city) need a clearer explanation for their existence than what he gives. If the incidental to what he was really trying to accomplish than (in my own limited opinion of course) he shouldn't have spent SO much time establishing it's rules.

If this all sounds vague and unclear than you have some idea of what it was like to read the second half of the novel.

Either way I found each of the individual elements of the story interesting individually even if they weren't cohesive. There were moments that I found Michael Marshall Smith actually managed capture horror in a way that you're conventional blood drenechd "horror" novels can only stab at (pun intended.) There are nightmares here that left me a little sick and uneasy as though they'd been my own. Parts of it are really funny. And some of it is really exciting. If you can get past the fact that it is inconsistent and just take the story as it evolves you may just have a good time.

The Library Journal describes ONLY FORWARD as an "...sf action thriller in a color-coded near future, where independent neighborhoods vie for dominance in a dangerous and deadly high-tech world." Well, I actually read ONLY FORWARD and, while there are neighborhoods that are very distinctive, there wasn't much vying for dominance going on, nor is this what I would call a "thriller". It was mostly a live-and-let-live arrangement among the neighborhoods, and any excitement generated in the first part of the book was dissipated in the vapid second part.

The neighborhoods are all featured primarily in the first part of ONLY FORWARD, wherein Stark (the main character) tries to locate and bring home missing technologist Fell Alkland. This part of the book is mildly amusing, but suffers from a degree of predictability. Moreover, the neighborhood concept suffers from a lack of internal consistency, which makes it hard to take seriously. One, for example, is controlled by gangs and completely chaotic, with killings and destruction the order of the day. The trouble with such a "neighborhood" is that it would be reduced to an uninhabitable pile of rubble within a very short time. Another "neighborhood" exists in total isolation; walled off from its neighbors and keeping its citizens in total ignorance of the existence of an outside world. Hard to figure how this is managed when it becomes clear that the neighborhood is (surprise) not self-sufficient and must trade with other neighborhoods to maintain itself. Inconsistencies such as these are common in the first half of the book.

The latter part of ONLY FORWARD throws the unsuspecting reader into Jeamland. Jeamland is a fanciful dreamworld; a surreal vision conjured up out of thin air that, like a dream, has no internal consistency. Indeed, the Jeamland environment shifts with the slippery ease of an oil-slick on the surface of a running stream. There's a lot of action here, but it isn't particularly compelling because the prevailing reality changes at the whim of certain characters and it's hard to accept that one character can be harmed by another character's dream.

Some folks apparently really like this book. It's even won awards. Not in my Jeamland, however (in my Jeamland, I just won the Lotto and I'm off to Sacramento to claim my prize). I confess that I'm mystified as to what folks see in it. Someone wrote about ONLY FORWARD that "...the story blazes with visionary intensity." Well, there may be some intensity (if you can get past the absurdity), but there's nothing visionary about it. Very little of what it contains could possibly occur in any imaginable reality. In fact, this isn't science fiction at all. It's fantasy of the most extreme sort. Even Tolkien's fantasy world is internally consistent and functions by some recognizable rules. Little of that exists here; none in Jeamland.

"Properly warned ye be, says I." The first part of ONLY FORWARD was far-fetched and predictable, but worth three stars in my book. I found the Jeamland part more mind-numbing than mind-bending, though. If surrealism is your cup of tea, go for it. At least you've been warned about what you're getting into. But, if your reading tastes are anything like mine, this is a two star book. You're on your own.

One of my first books by this author that got me hooked...

MJL

I knew it was Sci-Fi but with a lot of truth in science facts.
The first 35 pages were hard to understand. Where he was going wasn't clear but then I couldn't put it down and finished it two days.

I ran across a reference while reading a physics book (Science Masters series) and had to check it out - great story that makes you think.

The development of the cheela society and religion draws a lot of parallels in human society. the idea of a species evolving in the extreme gravity of a pulsar is intruiging. There is a lot to ponder about, a species with a lifespan of six minutes, thought process faster than the fastest of our computers etc. i have recomonded it for a lot of my sci fi loving friends.

It's been a couple of decades since I first read this brilliant book, but the passage of time has not diminished my enthusiasm for it. Relativity is a difficult concept for most people to grasp, because we tend to see so little of it within the context of the 'ordinary' human scale. And yet--with the explosion of electronic communication, and the emergence of ubiquitous computing paradigms, we are beginning to come to grips with some of the implications Forward lays out in his clever tale.

I admit, you have to be able to suspend a certain amount of scientific disbelief, in order to get on with it--you have to accept that bio-chemistry could work on a neutron star to produce sentient organisms capable to learning to manipulate their environment with the sophistication of human beings. But given that, the story becomes an excellent window into the notion of converging scales of space-time continuums. This approach is common in speculative fiction with a strong scientific foundation. Given premise A, extrapolate conclusion B. It's analogous to what Einstein used to refer to as 'thought experiments'.

I used to refer to this book frequently, when attempting to explain the nanospheric implications of computer operations, and with chip speeds approaching the realm of quantum effect--there are a whole lot of cpu cycles that can execute a lot of different instructions in a single second, these days.

The Cheelah come to represent a wonderful metaphor for the process that all of us are struggling to adapt to, of ever increasing speeds and ever smaller footprints to our electronic computing devices. Consider that at the time the book originally appeared, the Mac platform had not been released, and neither had Windows, or the WWW. Consider the impact near instantaneous communications and just in time manufacturing has had on society, and Dragon's Egg becomes a rare and valuable didactic utility, and a whiff of what the future might just hold in store.