Market-sectors

Grrrrrrrrreat! James White does it again with another interesting story. I like the humour that runs through it.

When I finished this book, I knew that it rated five stars, even though I like "The Genocidal Healer" better. I guess that speaks to how good the "Sector General" series is; they all earn 4.8 to 5 stars.

O'Mara, the Chief Psychologist on a hospital ship/space station called "Sector General", has been a major background player in many previous Sector General novels. Now, he is retiring and, in flashbacks, we get his reminiscences as he prepares to leave a long career. We learn how he became a psychologist, how he became Chief Psychologist, where his gruff demeanor comes from, and many other tidbits that fill in gaps in the Sector General saga.

As with all Sector General novels, this is a fast-paced, well-written book, although there is a confusion of names at one point - Padre Carmody gets called Padre Lioren, or vice-versa. Most of the other Sector General novels proceed in a very linear progression, but this one does not. Going along with its reminiscence style, it jumps around chronologically quite a bit.

I still think "The Genocidal Healer" is the best of the series, but "Mind Changer" is still a good, fun book.

Until *Mind Changer* came along, I hadn't realized how much I'd missed by not knowing more about the "nasty" Major O'Mara, even though I liked him. It's time for Major O'Mara to retire, and this book, like O'Mara himself, moves from the present to the past, and back. We learn more about the early days of Sector General and O'Mara's role in bringing about many items that are familiar to the series. Although the final revelation was obvious before chapter 15, that didn't spoil the book. Everything leading up to the end was interesting. I think anyone who cares about O'Mara will be pleased at his fate. [Note to the publisher: On p.217, full paragraph one, Padre Lorien is named, but the context makes it obvious that Padre Carmody is meant. If that IS an error, you may wish to correct it for the paperback.] Ann E. Nichols

This is a very good book, it gives a very complete analysis of different sector of the canadian stock market. Moreover, the authors seems to be quite qualified.

This is a great book for true fundamental canadian securities valuation. It is very complete and the individual authors seems to be quite qualified.

This book is a magnificent introduction to warrant investments. Giving specific explanations of what a warrant is, how it works, and what makes it attractive, the author also clearly states the risks associated with the investment tool. This gives a fair picture of the tool, so that everybody can find out whether or not they want to use warrants for their own investment. The writing of the book is clearly understandable, even to non-investment freaks. Difficult terms are explained clearly, and the book leads the reader further into the subject with each chapter. After having read the book, you might not be the world's greatest expert on warrants, but you will definitely be in the position to make some money out of them. A book for anybody who wants to make some money!

Until I read Mr Fisher's seminal work, I had no or little interest in resource allocation in the public sector. After reading it, however, I consider myself a complete convert!! Mr Fisher makes what would appear to be a somewhat dull subject abolutely enthralling - in the same way that Hamlet is not just a play about a fictional Prince, this book is not just a book about resource allocation in the public sector, and I would advise anyone with even the slightest interest in values, priorities and markets in the management of public services to pick up a copy now. A perfect stocking filler!

Corporate lawyers and JAG officers are, by nature, opponents and Major Sean Drummond, JAG officer extraordinaire, has no desire to get sucked into that pit. But he's about to anyway. When told he's to become part of the "Working With Industry Program" which places him in the midst of a private sector firm, he's determined to make the most of his notorious reputation - and get kicked out.

His resolve wavers, however, when the military officer previously assigned to the same office is murdered and others follow. Now, Drummond is on the path of a serial killer and may end up the next target. With "partners" Janet Morrow and David Spinelli, he uses tactics not employed by law enforcers to get the information he needs.

At the same time, there is suspicious activity going on at the firm that keeps landing at his door. Drummond has an aversion to people assuming he's incompetent enough to become a fall guy, so he's on a mission to put a stop to that also.

He may have become embroiled with more than he can handle this time. There are agencies involved he never would have dreamed of, and - for their own purposes - they may be far too willing to look the other way when it comes to punishing the truly guilty parties. As a man who has dedicated his life and loyalty to the government, what can he do but let them?

Brian Haig's fourth novel is undoubtedly his best to date. It once again features the roguish and proudly antagonistic Sean Drummond who is rapidly growing into one of the genre's favorite legal eagles.

I was hooked on Brian Haig's central character JAG lawyer Sean Drummond when I read THE KINGMAKER (five star review of 5/13/03); thus, I resolved to read the earlier books in the series to watch both the character development and changes in the author's technique and style. I subsequently finished SECRET SANCTION (3.5 star review of 7/30/03) and found it enjoyable but not nearly in the same class as THE KINGMAKER. Before I could get to MORTAL ALLIES (#2 in the series), PRIVATE SECTOR was published and I decided to read it before starting the earlier book. I highly recommend both the author and this book, although for reasons summarized at the end of this review (some of which may be entirely personal) I did not find it as completely enjoyable as THE KINGMAKER. But it is a fast moving, excellently plotted, well crafted story and continues the character development of Sean Drummond, who has the potential to be one of the enduring protagonists of this genre.

When Major Drummond is notified by his boss, General Clapper, that he is being assigned to the PRIVATE SECTOR law firm Cupler, Hutch, and Westin under a "loan out" program whose supposed goal is to broaden the experience of the JAG staff while creating goodwill in the public sector, he immediately begins to plot the best method to sabotage the assignment without creating such enmity between himself and Clapper that he effectively terminates his Army career. He realizes that the combination of his natural personality traits should easily be able to be honed to accomplish the task, and immediately begins to alienate those with whom he comes into contact. The one interesting element of the assignment is that Sean is replacing fellow officer Lisa Morrow, whom he has come to know and respect during previous assignments and for whom he harbors a great deal of apparently unrequited affection. When Lisa indicates a desire to meet Sean, he is both curious about what aspects of her experience at Cupler he needs to be briefed and hopeful that she may be more attracted to him than he expected. Unfortunately, their meeting never occurs due to Lisa's apparently random murder in a DC parking lot (this minor spoiler is included because it is revealed on the book jacket) and Sean immediately decides he should supplement the efforts of the DC police and the CID ( the Army's Criminal Investigation Division) in investigating Lisa's death. Since he quickly comes to believe that Lisa's death may be related to Lisa's work at Cupler, he realizes that in order to effectively further his goal of catching Lisa's killer he has remain in the good graces of both the partners of Cupler and General Clapper, not at all an easy task for Sean.

As the cliché goes, the plot quickly thickens as further increasingly brutal and apparently random murders occur. Meanwhile Sean is involved in helping the firm's largest client, Morris Networks, a telecommunications firm spawned during the financial market and technological excesses of the nineties successfully win a major government contract. He soon suspects that Lisa's death and the other murders might somehow be related to Cupler 's representation of Moriss and it's "new economy" CEO Jason Morris. As the story unfolds, there are as usual in Haig's novels many excellent lines from Sean, a well thought out although convoluted plot, and a knowledgeable and quite informative discussion of the latest uses of sophisticated financial instruments and their accounting implications (a la Enron, which is mistakenly referred to as Exxon).

This is an enjoyable and well told story; although I had the advantage of understanding the business aspects of the plot the details are not essential to the story. (I also had the disadvantage of knowing enough to be aggravated at his admittedly minor mistakes.) The author did excellent research and his information is essentially correct with regard to both the details and the overview. However, I was disappointed by the anti-corporate tone of the book, there are basically no honorable people either at Morris or Cupler. In addition, Sean's idiosyncratic characteristics actually were a little overdone at times during the early part of the story and stretched cleverness to the edge of inaneness, which bordered on losing credibility. My only major criticism is the technique of writing this story with Sean as the first party narrator but interspersing segments where the killer became the narrator. (There was no confusion when this occurred, it was identified with a change in typeface. I just found it a little disconcerting although I understand the author's reasons for utilizing the technique.) So, I highly recommend this book as a good legal/action mystery by a talented author. You will benefit from reading the earlier books in the series prior to this, but that is not at all necessary. But if you only have time for one Brian Haig book, I recommend THE KINGMAKER instead as a superior read. (It is now in paperback.)

Tucker Andersen

I just love wise-cracking protagonists; they have a skill I've never been able to develop. Sean Drummond is the JAG attorney creation of Brian Haig, son of Alexander (you know, of "Don't worry, Alex is here. I'm in charge, so nothing to worry about" fame), but I won't hold that against him.
Major Drummond has been asked to spend a year working for a private law firm - Culper, Hutch, and Westin - that represent some of the District of Columbia's most respectable institutions, as an experiment in army/private sector cooperation. The fact that he is unpopular with his army superiors for his sharp tongue and insubordination might also have had something to do with it. Drummond begins irritating his stuffed shirt bosses from the moment he arrives. He figures if he makes himself sufficiently unpopular, he can get himself kicked out of the program, where he follows in the footsteps at the law firm of Lisa Morrow, another JAG officer and Sean's erstwhile old flame.
Lisa had been killed in the Pentagon parking lot just before a dinner date that Sean hopes might rekindle some of the former embers. Her death is followed by three others, all the ostensible work of a serial killer whose modus operandi appears very similar to that of the LA Killer of several years before, i.e., the victims' necks had all been snapped. There was no apparent connection between the victims.
Sean, in the meantime has become embroiled in an audit of Morris Telecommunications, a company that has retained his law firm. Sean discovers some unusual financial arrangements, but he has no reason to suspect anything particularly nefarious until his brother, a financial wizard with spreadsheets, points out that several "swaps" on Morris's books put Sean's firm in some financial jeopardy. (Swaps are what sank Enron. Basically, two entities get together to show revenue on their books for the largely insubstantial use of each other's services. It's a way of propping up income statements to keep stock prices up, all legal according to generally accepted accounting principles, but another reason to shoot the accountants before going after the lawyers. :)) ) Drummond also begins to realize that the firm's attorneys might be capitalizing on his inexperience with corporate law to set him up as a fall guy. They to reckon without his long experience as a criminal attorney for the army.
In the meantime, Janet Morrow, Lisa's sister and assistant district attorney in Boston, has decided to follow the investigation into her sister's death from close up. She and Sean discover that Lisa's emails had been hidden and quarantined in the firm's network behind a secure firewall. Sean is accused of malfeasance by the firm, but by some not-so-subtle pressure on the privates of his boss (in a very funny scene), Sean extorts the help of the firm's computer expert to examine Lisa's emails. It's there that he discovers a link between the victims. Lisa had known all of them.
Soon Drummond is snared in a mesh of conflicting loyalties, as he discovers that some governmental agencies are involved in some very secret business. A fun read. Drummond is a great character who ranks with Nelson DeMille's wiseacre CID investigator.

Maybe it's because I've read most of the other Sector General stories.. I felt that Final Diagnosis had way too much explanation in it. Most of the other books do explain the alien physiology classifications that White uses, which is fine, but this particular plot could have fit in a thimble after all the explanations had been cut.

James White has written an entire series of novels set in "Sector General", an enormous spaceship/space station that functions as an interspecies hospital of the future, inhabited by dozens of different species of sentient beings from across the galaxy. The stories are always well-written, fast-paced, character-based but filled with action, and touched with satire and humor.

In this particular novel, a human named Hewlitt was raised on a colony planet and has a history of near-fatal illnesses without apparent cause, followed by miraculous recoveries. All of his life, the semi-xenophobic Hewlitt has been the target of doubt and skepticism from medical personnel, who think his episodes of illness are either self-induced (Munchausen Syndrome) or hypochondriacal in nature. In a last-ditch attempt to accurately diagnose ("final diagnosis") and treat his "illness", he goes to the galaxy-renowned Sector General hospital. I won't give away the rest of the story, but adventures and mishaps abound, with a fascinating double-climax (Hewlitt's final diagnosis and then dealing with its implications).

The story is hard to put down, and is very enjoyable reading. That's expectable from this entire series of books, with "The Genocidal Healer" being the best of a good bunch.

I have not read the rest of James White's Sector General series but I now eagerly anticipate reading them. The humor and mystery of the book were only equalled by White's talent for describing enthralling alien characters. He paints a picture of the future with a different slant than any I have read thus far, an uplifting look at human/life ironies told from a sympathetic point of view, like a Norman Rockwell doctor who routinely treats nitrogen-breathing slime creatures from a planet with five times our gravity!

Cooper is the guy if you are into development - from idea to delivery of the goods - be it a product (widget), software or services. He is a portfolio management guy that will help you wrap your thinking around making investments into ideas that are yearning to make a debut in reality.

This is a very good book for managers of new service development processes. It offers a framework for designing and implementing a new service development process and there are many good advice and techniques in the book that I believe will prove invaluable to these managers. I expect this is the result of the 1,500 case studies that the authors have conducted.

I especially liked the sections that the authors have entitled "Points for Management to Ponder". These short bits, interspersed throughout the book, forces a reader to link the theories to actual situations in a company. I found such exercises beneficial to the learning process.

However, I found that the authors tend to repeat themselves throughout the book. For example, Chapter 4 and 5 are essentially the same. Chapter 4 walks through the framework fairly quickly with a real case example while Chapter 5 examines the general framework in detail. I believe the 2 chapters could have been combined without much loss to content.

I recommend this book to practitioners, as this is a very practical book. For readers who just want to know more about service development but are currently not involved in any development work, this book is not for you. Like me, you may find some of the framework difficult to understand without a real case to relate to.

Well written and full of understandings... Bob, as with all his books, has made many key points. An excellent read for anyone who's business is dependent on new services and believes that luck is not a sustainable advantage. If you believe that the event or experience marketing is the key to most sales, then becoming excellent in launching new services is a must.

I can remember curling up with this book at the age of 12 and enjoying every moment of it! Re-visiting the whole sector general series I found that I still enjoyed the stories.

True the earlier books - such as Sector General - are a little dated in their relegation of females to nurses rather than doctors - but I still enjoyed the concept of a huge hospital full of interesting alien doctors working together.

It never quite encouraged me to become a doctor - but I remain an avid SF/Fantasy fan!

This book was my first introduction to the world of intergalactic medicine as envisioned by James White, and got me hooked on the series. It is actually a collection of four short stories, the first of which sets the stage for the formation of the massive inter-species hospital known as Sector General. One of the aspects of White's stories that I enjoy most is how his characters are able to rise above their preconceptions to handle the wildy varied scenarios encountered when trying to offer emergency medical aid to previously unknown species. The pace of the stories is rapid, with just enough hinted-at subcontext to give substantial depth to the principal characters. As I tend to move every few years, I am highly selective about the books I lug around -- this is one of the select few that I won't part with.

'Sector General' is a collection of four short stories. The first, 'Accident' is set on the planet Nidia decades before the hospital is built. MacEwan of Earth and Grawlya-Ki of Orligia are *the* heroes of the first, (and hopefully last) interstellar war because they ended it. Trapped together in the wreckage of their crashed spaceships, injured and unlikely to be rescued, they become the first Orligian and Human to actually talk to each other and discover their war is all a simple, horrible misunderstanding. Fortunately they are rescued in time to share their discovery but the mortally wounded MacEwan must be put into stasis until medical science advances enough to save him and Grawlya-Ki choses to join him. The two frozen warriors, still in the remains of their ship, are put on display as one of the most effective War Memorials of all time. They awake over two centuries later to discover they have become icons of the horror of war and the need for peace. But the icons have minds of their own, they disapprove of the rigidly controlled, limited contact between the species that make up the Federation. They argue the races have to really get to know each other, feel comfortable enough with each other to banter and quarrel, or mutual fear will lead to another war. Their views do not prove popular and they are in the process of being politely shipped off Nidia when an accident traps them with a variety of other beings in the wrecked departure lounge. Old soldiers that they are MacEwan and Grawlya-Ki automatically take command of the situation organizing rescue and first aid efforts among the casualties but will help reach them in time? In the next story, 'Survivor', Dr. Conway and the crew of the Ambulance Ship Rhabwar rescue the sole survivor of a space wreck and bring it back to Sector General. Now strange psychological effects are disrupting the hospital, could the alien somehow be to blame? Next the Rhabwar's crew investigates a crashed alien ship whose survivors seem to have suffered mutilations unrelated to their crash injuries in a story aptly titled, 'Investigation'. And finally in 'Combined Operation' the alien ship and the entity inside it are both in pieces and it's going to take the combined forces of Sector General and the Monitor Corps to put them back together again.

I really enjoyed the way all the events in the books melded together. How friendship and courage and decency became the glue that cemented the whole of the story. To me, as a 25 yr Star Trek fan that is the appeal of the series and the Star Trek characters. The character of Stiles was a refreshing one. He seemed within the emotional reach of the reader and his self-discovery and self-realization lead the story along, while providing a wonderful avenue for bringing the more familiar characters of Spock and Dr. McCoy and Dr. Crusher into the tale. Diane Carey has done her usual job of making the details and science of the Starfleet ships and crew seem very believable, also. I am not overly concerned with technology and sometimes feel bogged down with details in some of the books,but Carey makes me want to read about the workings of a StarFleet ship and makes it an interesting part of the story. The medical aspects of the whole Double Helix series has been interesting to me and prompted my initial interest in the series. I think they are a keeper and I can't wait to read the next three!

The Star Trek: Double Helix series is about a mysterious villain who is releasing biological agents across the Alpha Quadrant. This time he has targeted the Romulan royal family, and is up to Dr. McCoy and Ambassador Spock to find the cure before the Romulan Star Empire collapses into chaos and a potential devastating border war with the Federation.

That's what the book is supposed to be about. Forget all of that. The Romulans, the plague, Ambassador Spock and Dr. McCoy are all on the sidelines. The real story is about two young people. One is a Starfleet officer who desperately wants to live up to the legacy of his ancestors who served with Captain Kirk and fought in the Romulan Wars. The other, Zevon, is a Romulan prince and scientist, wracked with the guilt that a simple experiment he created led to the destabilization of an entire world. Both spent four years together as POWs in Red Sector, an area of space sealed off from the rest of the galaxy because of its political instability and hostility to aliens. Stiles eventually gained his freedom, but Zevon remained. Now years later, it is up to Stiles to rescue his friend and return him to Romulus, for his untainted blood is the last great hope for a cure.

If this all sounds complicated, it is. Diane Carey is a wonderful veteran Trek writer, but the plot jumps all over the damn place. She tries to do too many things in too little space. You've got the plague, the conspiracy behind it, the Romulans and all of their political intrigue, one last adventure for Spock and McCoy, Eric Stiles' maturation from a young ensign to a hero and officer in his own right, and Zevon's fight to bring peace and stability back to the planet his experiment had ruined.

Nitpicks: 1) This is supposed to be a medical thriller but it's not. 2) The mastermind villain becomes so mysterious he's almost like a cartoon character. 3) Red Sector is such an artificial plot device. I just can't believe the Federation, Romulans, and everybody else would seal off an area of space just because of some anti-alien hostility on a primitive world. 4) For various reasons, it makes much more sense to have Dr. McCoy treating the Romulan royals than Dr. Crusher, who starts acting just like him in her bedside manner. 5) The Top Gun stuff gave me a headache.

Despite all of this, the book is still fun to read. Why? Because the characterization is excellent. Ambassador Spock and Dr. McCoy don't appear often, and rarely together, but when they do they shine. You really do feel like you're seeing legends at work. Even more impressive is the creation of a strong character such as Eric Stiles completely out of scratch. His transformation from a young inexperienced ensign to a hero worthy of Kirk makes up more than enough for all of the book's many flaws.

This book is a journey of one man. At the beginning of the novel he is but an ensign in charge of extracting Ambassador Spock from a world in political turmoil, and it does not go the way he intends. The first part of the book is about his life after that mission goes awry, and how he grows up from a young, unsure-of-himself officer to a hardened man. The second part of the book sees him take on a new challenge that is intertwined with the Double Helix plot, of which this book is part 3 of 6.

With guest appearances by Spock, McCoy, Dr. Crusher and other characters in the NCC-1701-D crew compliment, this book centers on the journey of this young man from adolescene to adulthood, and I was gripped from beginning to end by the inner turmoil and outer emotions that the main character, Eric Stiles, is expertly described to undergo by Diane Carey. Ms. Carey's expertise in naval technical details shines in this book, as also seen in her hardback novel, _Ship of the Line_, about the first mission of the Enterprise NCC-1707-E, starring Captaion "Frazier" (Kelsey Grammar from Cheers' TNG character) and the NCC-1701-D crew after the movie Star Trek Generations. Both that book and this one have the characters on board vessels not normally seen in Star Trek TV episodes, for example border cutters (like the Coast Guard) and CSTs -- Combat Supply Tenders, one of which plays a major role in both book 3's plot and the ongoing double helix plot in this novel.

I highly recommend the Double Helix series--at least the first three books which I have read so far. They are entertaining, bring in characters from other eras and Star Trek series, and the underlying virus plot is also a great mystery.

If you're just looking for the further adventures of 130-something year old Bones McCoy, and his green blooded pal Spock, this is a great book. She depicts those characters true to their form from TV and the expanded universe of their appearances in various novels since then. Bravo to Diane Carey! Now I'm on to Book 4....

Schlosser, the author of the recently famous Fast Food Nation, follows up with another, though less than stellar, piece of social commentary. This time, however, he splices this shorter book into three different, partially related topics. One is about marijuana, the other is about migrant farm workers, and the last part is about the porn industry.

All three sections explain the history, the social injustices, and the current state of those particular topics. With three different section, Schlosser fails to go in depth into some of the major issues. While not a flaw in itself, sometimes the information could have been more statistical or insightful.

The first section is the best. He describes the continuing and perhaps fruitless effort of America's political system to stop the spread of weed. Though mostly anecdotal, he does open eyes to the unequal and baffling judicial and legislative steps to stop this so called problem.

The second part of the book mainly concerns migrant strawberry workers from Mexico. Though informative, I think he fails to reveal why such a system continues to thrive. While describing their living conditions, there is little mention of the 'Not in my Backyard' movement,, and no mention of California's proposition 13. When he discusses there working conditions, he fails to fully explain the proposed guest worker program, nor does he provide statistics that could shed some more light on the subject.

The last part, about the porn industry, is terrible. While most of the book is dedicated to high level issues and concerns, he basis this story on a porn distributor's legal dilemma in painfully boring detail. It seems like Schlosser really was obsessed with someone who wasn't that interesting. Schlosser goes into agonizing details - like literally giving the life story of the guy who eventually examined the porn distributor's taxes.

This book is a quick read, but this leaves the impression of quick book of unrelated information tied together in order to capitalize on the buzz of the author's previous book.

Hot on the heels of his massive success with the superb "Fast Food Nation," author Eric Schlosser has filled in the gap between it and his next project with "Reefer Madness." The book purports to explore the American underground economy, and Schlosser's preface tries to link the book's three sections together using that theme, but it ultimately doesn't come together as a cohesive whole. The three individual topics (the criminalization of marijuana, the exploitation of migrant farmworkers and the rise of pornography as a major industry), however, are quite interesting.

What's obvious is that Schlosser has reported on these subjects before and has merely updated them to be put into book form. The incidents he describes for the most part took place back in the 1990s, which makes them less than immediately topical. Nevertheless, like with "Fast Food Nation," the author has some strong views and isn't shy about sharing them. Schlosser is a refreshing breath of fresh air as a journalist in that he refuses to buy into the conventional wisdom and asks the kind of questions that rarely get asked in other forums.

Overall, "Refer Madness" is a good stopgap for people who enjoy Schlosser's style. It made me look forward to his next project, which will explore the American prison system.

This book is similar to his first one, Fast Food Nation, so I'll say basically the same thing I said about that one. If everyone had to read this book our country would be in better shape. This is an eye opening, life changing book that'll make you seriously question the policies and economics of our country. Read it and wake up!