Holder

Plot holes still plague the story.

The main problem most people will have is that there is no hero. The main character, Holly, devolves from Anti-hero to villain, and deserves to die every bit as much as the people she's fighting. Of the support characters, the actual "good gals and guys" are weak, whiney, and ineffective. There is very little real depth to the characters.

This is the second time the climactic battle description just stops, instead of ending. We get to the start of the climax at the end of one chapter, and the next chapter starts 10 minutes later looking back on what just happened.

The focus on how majic works is very unclear, as is how these kids are learning majic.

All things considered, if you need a break from Harlequin Romance novels and soap operas, this is fine, but otherwise you may want to look at a different series like Xanth, Mythadventures, Spellsinger, Hitch-hiker's Guide, or even Star Wars.

holly and amanda are continuing their feud with the devereaux warlocks. nicole on the other hand has fled to parts unknown to escape the magic that nearly cost them their lives. holly is now the lead of the coven and her powers are growing past anything she ever expected. this book is not quite as good as the first one, but it will keep you enthralled with evil plots and schemes, lots of history lessons and life and death situations. i read it in 24 hours so it was not all bad.

I really loved the first book, full of adventure, and romantic endevaurs, but I felt so confused by BOTH books because there doesn't seem to be a good-bad conflict. It seems like the two sides are bad, or the Cahor's are a little less bad than the Deverauxs, but there doesn't seem to be clear sides, which confuse me a lot throughout the book, and so do the time-switches. But all in all, I loved the plot and the character distinctions.

A group of unhappy people go on a budget cruise on a rundown freighter. An accident while they are overtaken by a fog bank causes them to have to abandon ship, whereupon they discover the nightmare has just begun.
The book had a couple of creepy moments, but mostly it just annoyed me. I can't really even put my finger on why, other than the fact that I found it to be rather cliched and predictable. It didn't outright insult my intelligence, but it did talk down to me a few times. It wasn't a bad read, but I can't honestly recommend it either.

I read this book over the course of two days - I couldn't put it down. Although, as another reader mentioned in an earlier review, there were some stock characters, they, and the story itself veered off in directions I never anticipated. It was a confusing, haunting book that still left me wondering days later. I wouldn't classify this book as true horror - it really wasn't that scary - I would consider it more of a horror "mystery".

Most of my fellow reviewers are exactly correct. This book starts with a crusher of an opening sequence and only gets better as the plot develops. Seemingly 'stock' characters are introduced, but fortunately Nancy veers away from all tired cliches, heading off into a horrible, surreal nightmare. Easily one of my favorite horror novels, even now, 5-6 years after first reading it. Holder covers the gruesome and, yes, touching aspects of her novel with equal skill and aplomb. Readers should be advised to seek out Holder's short fiction as well - she appears in countless horror anthologies and I've yet to find a clunker. Why we haven't seen a new, 'original' horror work from her (aside from her myriad 'Buffy' novelizations and collaborations) continues to escape me. She also wrote a good SF trilogy ("Gambler's Star") that is worth checking out as well.

Excellant read. I saw slade live three different times, once with Thin Lizzy, once with Humble Pie, and last but not least with Trooper, and ZZ Top, all in Milwaukee. I always wondered what happened to Slade, and Noddy does a great job of telling about the bands orgin, and the many insightfull details along the way. A true must for any Slade fan. I am reading it currently for the second time.

Rewind, a few decades or so... One of my great (pop music) regrets was never being able to attend an Elvis concert, when he got started, or a Beatles concert when they came to America. I recovered from these small losses and went on to lead a normal life. Well, almost normal.

MY GREATEST ALL-TIME REGRET, however, HANDS DOWN, BAR NONE, was never being able to attend a live Slade concert--when the house was rocking and when the fans were tearing the place down. I have seen Slade perform live twice, as opening acts for Golden Earring and Ozzie Osbourne, both times in San Francisco, and both times, sadly, the crowds were deader than air in a dead man's lungs. For someone like myself, an American living in a part of America where concert goers were unmoved by Slade, with me being just about the only person in the audience who loved Slade and who wanted to jump out of his skin and get down and get with it while the boyz who made noize were performing on stage, well, it was one of those epithany moments in life: you cannot belive you are actually there, and at the same time, you cannot believe the people around you are not also sharing the same epithany moment as you are. It is exactly this kind of moment that can truly shake-up, dumbfound, scar a person for life, leaving him to forever wonder... "Why?" Fast-forward to the present.

It has always bothered me that Slade was one of the three greatest recording AND live performance rock bands to ever come out of the United Kingdom, yet, unlike the Fab Four and The Rolling Stones, Slade never made a nation-wide impact in the USA like the other two bands did. For years, consciously and subconsciously, not really knowing why this amazing band did not click stateside, has tormented me. Until now.

If Noddy Holder's biography, WHO'S CRAZEE NOW?, answers one question, the question above is mostly answered by Holder with the rest of it answered by the reader's own mind assimilating the facts that Noddy lays out and filling in the details. It's like finding out who really was buried in King Tut's tomb, even though you probably knew all along it was Tut. Just hearing, or reading, about Slade in Noddy's own, delightful, cheerful, insightful, poetic, and never-with-a-bitter-pill-to-swallow words, ties up the loose ends about why Slade was so big over THERE but not over HERE, and puts the question to rest. Of course, the rest (and most) of the book--about Noddy's and the band's beginnings through it's endings, its tough early and later decisions, its creativeness and pure genius, and what's happening with the band members up to the present, tells the inside story of Slade, puts meat and flesh on the bones of the characters that were Slade, deepens your love for Slade, and leaves you thirsting for an encore--in whatever form it takes. ...

I received this book in the mail with Christmas-like anticipation. Slade was my favorite band in high school and news about them and radio play in Boston were more rare than an understated Dave Hill outfit. Noddy did not disappoint me. The stories about his postwar working class upbringing, England's pop culture in the 60s and 70s, the band's early days on the club circuit, and the rising stars they met (e.g., Freddie Mercury selling togs at Kensington Market, a leather-clad Beatles at a Walsall youth center)are fascinating, as is his account of drummer Don Powell's Bentley accident that took the life of his girlfriend and his memory and sense of smell and taste.

I would have liked more background on their tours, but this is a discreet and generous account, so an expose must be left to a journalist. I finally understand Dave Hill's stage persona (even they thought he was bonkers) and came away with respect for they way the band stuck it out in the lean years.

I finished the book wanting to hear more and thinking Noddy and the rest of the band would be good company. I regret I never saw them in England during their prime, though the two performances I saw in Providence, RI when they were still trying to dent the US market highlighted my teens. A must read for Slade and music fans and Anglophiles.

Not the most detailed book.
(Get Fabulous Firebird for that)

But for some good color pictures and brief explainations
its fine.

A little short on first generation.

A good book. Excellent pictures and lots of lesser known facts, etc. I would have rated it 5 stars, but the book seemed to lack a certain sense of organization. It would give the horsepower numbers for one year, but not another. There were essentially no tables of data about horsepower or available options and the years. I would buy "The Firebird Redbook" if I was going to need this for buying a used Firebird, however this book is excellent if you want a good overview of the entire story of the Trans Am.

This book is a wonderful resource to have on hand. I reccomend that any collectors, enthusiasts,or restoration specialists purchase this book.

Not only does it include high-quality photos on every trim-line available (including Esprit,Firehawk,GTA,& Formula), but also details, through the text, many of the lesser known options. Some of the earlier paint options are also detailed, with color-photos. I have never seen such a well organized publication, which focuses on differences in the model through both year & trim line. This reference also includes information on why the changes were made.

For the enthusiast, there are enough pictures to make you want to purchase an additional book, just to hang up all the photos.

Those interested in restoring their vehicle to its original glory can use the full color photos as a guide to interior fabrics, striping options, and proper decal/emblem placement.

The hobbyist should find the original ads, sales history, specs, and introduction section of the book offers a unique new look at the history of these cars.

Anyone who is interested in purchasing a Pontiac Firebird or Trans Am should also purchase this book, as it is an excellent resource to what is available in the used car market.

This book, unlike most Firebird books on the market, focuses on the theme & flavor of the car, the concept,if you will, rather than the numbers. This book gives the reader a sense of what a Firebird really stands for-more than just your average sportscar, this car has a unique place in Pontiac's history, and has influenced the car-buying market since its introduction. This book helps the reader to understand why.

This books is fantastic. Sabrina, Harvey, Libby and Valerie are magically transported to Paris. There they have to finish some work and two of them get proposed to!

Hi Everyone reading this. First let me explain my situation. My name is Rachel and I am the typical twelve year old. Busy with school friends homework family and boys. Not to mention sports. But I always make sure I have enough time to just sit down and read. I am particularly attached to the Sabrina series because they mix fantasy and real life into one novel. They are quick and never boring and this book was definitly not boring. Up Up and Away teaches you and involves teenage stuff with a witch. How good can it get? I give it a four star but I agree with many of my friends who are also into Sabrina. This book was just plain good. -Rachel-

Sabrina, Harvey, Valerie, and Libby have one week to redo their lame science project about space. But before they have a chance to begin Sabrina finds a spell that transports them to Paris in 1783. Suddenly Sabrina and the three mortals find themselves captive in the barn of two crazy French hot air baloonists niece-and admirer of Harvey-who helps the teens escape.

Along the trail, they learn the ups and downs -literally-of the hot-air balloon and discover a link between their project and the magic puzzle. But then-zap! A storm brews with the foursome on board. Will they solve the puzzle and make it back to Westbridge before lighting strikes?

Dr.Holder analyzes the nature of defensive tactics from A-Z.
This straight-forward book breaks down the need for thinking defensively and the psychology of defense. In addition, the author demonstates practical common-sense methodology towards developing a defense-oriented thought process. In finding yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, the first question the calm mind asks is "How did I get in this situation?"
The author asks the questions that should be asked before the situation occurs and shares obviously considerable experience in being prepared for those defensive situations we hope we never have to encounter.

This book is an excellent guide for the security professional. It encompasses superb instructions in many ways to protect yourself and others. Although not a security professional full-time I found the book a useful addition to my control and restraint repertoire. The only criticism I can find with this book is that it appears to be written for the experienced security professional so all beginners should ideally have a firm background in military or martial art self defence techniques to really appreciate it.

This book featuring the Raptor is well detailed, and a fun book to browse. Plentiful pictures, and some descriptions of its awesome capabilities. If you'd really like to know what it is to appreciate this fine piece of technological marvel, see the other books on the F-22. Comparitively, I did not find it as indepth as another available soft-cover - see Bill Sweetman's version: F-22 Raptor. I have enjoyed both books, but would recommend Sweetman's - let's just say I am a genuine "Warplane Buff". I have not read the more expensive book, by Aronstein, but from its review, and the fact that it has an insider's view, it should be very interesting...(if you don't mind paying more) - Aronstein's is quite possibly a five-star! ...in my opinion.

This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the air force's newest future fighter.-----excellent!!!!!

Endangered Species is entertaining and action-packed fun. Not surprisingly, it's very high on the action and fighting, but pretty low on the character development. But in this story, it seems like it doesn't really matter.

The gang is out patrolling one night when they are cornered by mutated demons... and soon rescued by their creator, Chaz Escobar. Chaz reveals that he was on his private island with his wife, Marianna, who was recently turned into a vampire. The two loved to hunt; they sponsored special gatherings in which a breed of demon, or even human, would be the prey. Marianna, however, escaped from the island and Chaz believes she may be in Los Angeles fulfilling her deepest wish: to capture and then hunt a Slayer. The Slayer in question is Faith, who is still serving her sentence in prison.

Chaz soon reveals, though, that he is searching for a way to cure his wife of her vampirism. To do so he needs the Book of Interregnum, the most evil book ever made. But the way he plans on curing Marianna isn't what's expected: he wants to destroy all vampires. And he's not the only one after the Book... another vampire (incidentally sired by Drusilla) is looking for it to raise the Beast of the First Blood... AKA the first vampire.

Endangered Species has several high points: the return of Faith, who was been absent from the Buffy-verse for years now, several flashbacks to Darla and Angelus's past, and a wonderfully written Hawaiian character who comes to Angel's rescue. There are also a fair share of low points: Faith is actually hardly in the novel, the final battle drags on for too long, and most of the outcomes are very predictable.

Overall, I would recommend Endangered Species. If you're a die-hard Angel fan, you might want to get it right away. If you're just a reader who enjoys the novels, you may want to wait until this one's available in paperback.

Being a fan of seasons 1 through 3 of Angel, it was nice to drift back in time and read about the characters and their dynamics that inspired me to watch the show. It is refreshing to go back and see the mutual admiration that Cordy and Angel had for one another, Wesley still trying to find himself, and Gunn before Wolf Ram and Hart inserted new knowledge into his brain. The show as it presently stands has totally turned me off and its good to be able to enter the world that I used to love. It is great to have Cordy recieving visions and playing the damsel in distress again; no Connor; no Spike; and the Angel investigations that we all grew to love. Maybe Joss Whedon could have held on to the shows fanbase if he stuck with the original premise.

this book starts out with cordelia having a vision that faith is in mortal danger from an unknown enemy. when the gang investigates, the run across a man named chaz who is trying to find a way to cure his wife from being a vampire. in the past these 2 have set up elaborate hunts for various species and his wife's next game is a slayer herself. on the road to figuring all of this out, they run across another vampire who was turned dby drusilla who has a game plan of her own with the help of wolfram and heart. with all of these characters as villians, you know that this has to be a great book. it is long but well worth the read.

The town of Smallville has become a character in the TV series of the same name, with a history of strangeness that extends back a long time before the meteor shower that brought Clark Kent to earth. This book explores some of that strangeness in a ghost story where unavenged wrongs keep the souls of victims active in the world.

All the characters get their share of the action, both the cast familiar to us from the TV show, and a few new ones. The Brucker's come to Smallville with their own ghost still a very unsettled part of their lives. By the end of the book they are not only at peace with themselves, but they manage to escape Smallville alive. No small feat for secondary characters in this series.

Nancy Holder has some fun with a range of details while telling her story, from small town life to cutting edge science to the toys and phone etiquette of the super rich. Her characterizations of the characters were very good. I especially liked Chloe's annoyance at Clark's attempts to save her life while she was preoccupied with camera angles. Who cares about supernatural attacks when the story is all around you, after all?

The ability of the Luthor family to hide anything allowed Nancy to write a much more important story than you usually see in series books. If I have any gripe at all, it's that Clark has so little understanding of Lex's need to sweep everything under the rug.

It's not like he has his own spaceship in the storm cellar or anything.

adise from the first smallville book that was based on the first
episode, this book comes in a close second as a well written book. when a famous scientist is killed in an accident, his widow and daughter decide to move to smallville to start over. they rent a farmhouse but soon discover that the house is haunted. the daughter ginger enlists the help of clark, chloe,
pete, and lana to discover what is causing the unrest in the house. the story is suspenseful and has a very good ending. of course, nancy holder wrote this book. she has written several buffy the vampire slayer books and i have always admired her work. for any true smallville fan this book is a must.

This is an amazing Smallville book. I truly enjoyed every last single page of the book. Basically, it is about a haunted house being occupied by a young girl and her mother (a scientist working for Lex Luther). The young girl Ginger, is totally spooked about living in the house and make her feelings known to Clark, Lana, Chloe, and Pete. They all hold a seance to draw out the ghost. Honestly speaking, I was spooked out of my mind after reading this book. I must admit that I had a nightmare. Overall, the characters in the books are very believable and this book will make a great Smallville episode. This book also explores the relationship Clark has with his parents which is great because it isn't explored much on the TV show. This book has earned five stars.

This promising and potentially important historical study is all but ruined by the author's inability to control his subject matter. There's no denying that Hennessy knows his stuff. What he *doesn't* know is how to write. In a phrase, this book is a mess. It rambles, wanders, and meanders through fifty years of history and politics. For most readers (certainly this one) the result is a series of anecdotes. I should add that an American edition should have included a glossary of political terms and abbreviations. All in all, a disappointing piece of work that promised so much.

Peter Hennessy's book is a real eye-opener for someone like me, a half-Irish, half-English person, a citizen of Ireland who nevertheless feels a certain concern for the mother country (and I call it that not just because I was born there but because my mother is English).

The lack of a properly constituted British Constitution is one of the main themes of this book. What emerges from the dizzying to-ing and fro-ing of various governments is the extent to which each postwar Prime Minister has altered the terms of the job, according to what they wanted to achieve, or in the case of the less fortunate ones, what they were unable to achieve. Hennessy confesses to being an old-school Tory by upbringing, but an Old Labour man by temperament; his most genuine sympathies are displayed in the chapters on Clement Attlee (the immediately post-WW2 prime minister who introduced the National Health Service, amongst other things). But he is also dazzled by sheer verve in leadership, hence his grudging admiration for Margaret Thatcher. Yes, she (to use a Hennessy phrase) "made the weather" in British politics, not least in that she brutally dismantled democratic structures in the name of "defeating socialism" (her abolition of the Greater London Council is a particularly flagrant example of her contempt for what people actually wanted). On the other hand, she wrecked countless lives and ruined the fabric of British society in the name of "economic growth", which turned out to mean short-term gains for a few very rich people. Thatcher's unrepentant belief in the virtue of a "free market" (which was never really free anyway, not without vicious tariffs against nations unwilling to accept the terms that Thatcher and Reagan demanded) did uncountable damage to British society. The wounds that her policies created are deep and festering, and if there's any justice in history (which there isn't), she will be remembered as somebody who sold an extraordinary birthright for a mess of dubious investments. It takes an outsider to notice these things, but even as a teenager I could see how the Thatcher administration had depressed and demoralised a generation, whilst pumping another generation full of stupid greed and mindless acquisitiveness. One of the many fallouts of her reign is the sad decline of the BBC from a great national institution to a craven, market-driven supplier of trash.

The chapter on Tony Blair is one of the most interesting things in the book, even if Hennessy withholds final judgment on the guy. He points out that Blair has brought about some of the most spectacular constitutional changes of anyone since...well, since the war, probably; devolution to Scotland and Wales, some sort of ventures (finally) towards legislation in favour of human rights and freedom of information. (He doesn't mention the Northern Ireland Assembly, perhaps because it happened to late for the book.) Personally I reckon that these essays towards democracy have yet to be properly tried. But his criticisms of Blair's presidential, non-consultative style are accurate and justified. It remains to be seen if Blair gives a damn.

Hennessy's fundamental belief in the traditions (for they are no more than traditions) of British government is the real problem with this book. He gives great gossip; he is remarkably fair about such neglected periods as James Callaghan's administration (the one in which punk happened, pop culture fans) and the pretty-much stillborn administrations of Alec Douglas-Home, Winston Churchill (in his postwar government) and Harold Wilson's third crack of the whip. But really, this is an essay about how British government might be better carried on. He is too neutral, too much of a technocrat, to count the real cost of all these decisions. Shame, cause otherwise it's a cracking read.

British politics is a refreshing break from American politics. Today, as Peter Hennessy relates, Parliament is indeed a bear garden, but it is a garden of literate and witty bears, and not the merely ursine Trent Lott and Phil Gramm.

The unwritten British Constitution is an "oral" Constitution. As Tom Nairn has shown (in The Enchanted Glass) there is, for this reason, a dreamlike quality about procedures, and even a childlike autism shown in the interface of Number 10 and the Queen, wherein a great store is laid upon special boxes of magic papers.

It used to be endearing. However, as Tom Nairn and Norman Davies (The Isles) show, the unwritten British Constitution did not in actuality evolve time out of mind but instead in 1688 where it appears that the ruling elites of the Isles discovered a way of getting along with each other that involved carefully following norms, and strongly agreeng upon negative propositions, especially what sort of fellows did NOT constitute a proper player of the political game.

As a result, the boundaries of the British political system seem firm and unyielding to its participants and to American tourists; indeed the attraction to a certain sort of American mind is the attraction of what seems to be a closed system, "little England", free of French influenza or the clamor of competing interests here in the States.

But precisely as a result of the supposed unwritten nature of the British basic law, the boundaries do have a tendency to shift in an unseen (because undiscussed) way, much like North Carolina's Outer Banks, or the Fen Country.

Seismic changes occur in the British system in fits of absent-mindedness and are neither discussed nor properly recorded. For example, contrast the fact that in the period starting with the First World War and ending about 1990 with the Charles/Diana divorce.

In this period, Republicanism was unmentionable and Britons acted as if the constitutional Monarch was undiscussable and not replaceable, which (as Nairn shows) silenced a healthy 19th century British Republican tradition, in recent years under discussion again because of the savage treatment of Diana Spencer by the media.

Far more seriously and as Hennessy documents, the rules of the game have a tendency to change drastically as a result of the personal style of PMs. The signal case is that of Margaret Thatcher.

Systematically over-estimating her actual intellectual capabilities in the manner of the mid-level scientific worker Lady Thatcher showed that by giving deliberate offense, one could secure short-term advantage among the clubbable. That is, she entered a system dominated by upper-class males like Ted Heath whose combination of male chauvinism and chivalry had no way of dealing with simple lack of courtesy, amplified by media thugs.

In the 1980s, the worst sort of bounderism flowed unchecked through a channel dug by the 1979 winter of discontent. As an American observer I am forced to use British words coined in the pre-war years to describe strivers who take unfair advantage, and it seems that Thatcher opened a sort of bounder sluiceway through which previously checked energies (some benign and some malign) flowed into British life. This bounderism thought rather highly of itself as opposed to lazy sods in trade unions and Cambridge Apostles in MI5. But it seems to have been best at destruction, and Thatcher's own exclusion from public life in 1990 was, as Hennessy shows, payback by an Establishment that she "saved"...from any sort of nonsense including democracy, economic and political.

Hennessy's introductory chapters show that under George III the Prime Minister was truly only first among equals, not even able in some cases to sack other ministers. Perhaps this is the origin of the attractive tendency of the greatest to try to work as team members; their authority was never confirmed. This was by 1980 a power vacuum which Thatcher merely exploited. In light of her silly aphorisms (such as "there is no such thing as society") Margaret Thatcher was intellectually underqualified but introduced an era in which underqualified men and women (including John Major, Reagan, Blair, and both the elder and younger Bush) have been given a special pass if their ideology is conservative, whereas the truly qualified (Blair, Clinton, and Sen. McCain) achieve genuine results in the teeth of a drumbeat of opposition.

Characteristic of this opposition is the way it marshals false promises and true miseries among outsiders without, of course, letting them into the corridors of power. For example, it is absolutely astonishing here in the States that both Bushes have been able to steal formerly Democratic voters, because the policies of both create such misery among the rural white underclass. Thatcher coupled an unjustified pride in her own degree in sciences with a paradoxical contempt for university trained specialists who did not toe her party line, and appealed over their heads to a populace excluded from higher education by the class system. Thatcher replaced genuine bottom-up institutions such as the Greater London Council with a government of statistics and numerical objectives easily fudged by insiders, and unexplained to outsiders, which Blair has preserved.

The Most Tony has achieved his success only by transforming the PM into a sort of Presidential office, and he did so because he's aware that the New Tories will act like Thatcher to forestall a more gentlemanly regime, using media leaks, gossip and whatever else comes to mind including perhaps the Mace, to thwack the opposition upside the head. Number 10 has become the Beltway.

Unmentioned in this is the serious devolution of any ability for a British subject or American citizen to participate meaningfully in political affairs WITHOUT being coded as some sort of nut. Writers like Hennessy and observers of the Beltway are fond of describing, in a sort of insider's way, Inner Rings of power. These Inner Rings are naturalized. But the fact of their existence only means one thing to the ordinary slob; an increasing lack of access to the formulation of policy.