Ariel Reviews

I think the book was boring. I didn't like it one bit. All it talked about was military stuff. I don't like that. But it has some interesting stuff of what goes on under military servicing.

This is a hilarious book of quotations on everyone's favorite subject... sex. I've found myself quoting this book many times to friends or using them as topics of discussion.

Mildly interesting -- being so tiny saves it on the cute scale. Nice gift for your favorite female coffee lover.

When I read this three years ago in college, I found it at first interesting, and then maddening. Even more maddening was my experience on a trip, when I met someone spouting the ideas in this book. I read Babar as a child - and I am NOT a colonialist, or anything like. He says, however, that in reading such stories I was indoctrinated as a child. He villifies our childhood comic books, and blames them for the mistakes that people in our country have made as adults. This book is written for the sort of people who think that "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" teaches racism. If you think that, sure, pick the book up. If you DON'T - then the book will only offend you.

I read this book for a sociology class and it was interesting. The insights into children's stories are over the top at times, but overall it was an interesting book.

Personally, I think Dorfman to be above all a Marxist scholar of _American_ Mass Culture. His analysis of the Lone Ranger comic strips is a classic, above all for the link between superheroes and Welfare State reality. His analysis of Babar I find lacking somewhat in understanding of European realities (after all, to suppose that "savages" - elephants - can become civilized is, for a Frenchman of the 1930s, somewhat of a step foward)and therefore contrived. Meverthless, a must-read.

A better name for this book would have been stupid stories about characters in knigdome come. All this book does is tell a really bad story that has a really bad pay off. It makes all the characters in kingdome come look really dumb and weak then twists somethings in the kingdome come plot around. For me this book almost took away some of my great regard for the original kingdome come with the dumb things the authors did, you dont mess with something that was really good. This is what happens when you let someone write a sequal that oviously didn't like the prequal. In conclusion dont read or buy this book because if you do you'll regret it!

As single issues, the comics that make up The Kingdom" were fairly good, some better than others. As a collection, they don't work very well together.

The storytelling is very patchy. The beginning gives a great set-up: the creation of Gog, the birth of Superman and Wonder Woman's child, the deaths of multiple Supermen, the appearance of the Linear Men, and the reappearance of many supporting characters from Kingdom Come. The middle of the book, however, breaks the flow by setting aside this storyline and focusing waaaaaaay too much on a select few supporting characters, even one who wasn't IN Kingdom Come. By the end of the book, when the original storyline resumes, you'll be hard-put to still be interested in what's happening, and the horrible art in the last chapter was an insult to Jerry Ordway's and Ariel Olivetti's beautiful work in the beginning.

Kingdom Come was one of the best stories ever and had the potential for a lot of great follow ups but is completely ruined by the Kingdom. Why did Mark Waid think that this was the way to follow up Kingdom Come? There were too many mistakes here to be believed, the story was bad, the art was bad, and all it served was to create a plot device that completely undo's Crisis and is sure to be an even bigger mistake in the future. It also screws up Alex Ross's character designs. Batman doesn't wear his helmet in the final part, why do we want to see an old man in Bat-armor. The Flash's look is reduced to the regular custume with Jay Garrick's Helmet (why, why, why!!!?). In it's defense the filler stories showcasing the Kingdom Come characters decent, enjoyable stories with good art exploring the Kingdom Come future, which is what a KC sequel should have been about. But these aren't enough to forgive Waid and to ever just his writing again.

Writing as Sharon's "media advisor" and defender in the court of public opinion, Uri Dan is attempting to build a strong case for the actions Sharon took when he was a general and was accused of questionable military tactics. What I took away from this book was how unfair the legal system can be. Sharon had a judge blatanly biased in his favor. This is clearly desribed by the personal involvement the judge took on his behalf. He had the highest paid legal talent at his beck-n-call for free. He came across in this description as a mean-spirited "do it my way or else" type person. Reading the book many years after the fact, it appears the very reason he denied pursuing the suit against "Time" magazine was his true intent all along, i.e., to make a name for himself politically.

Dont be mislead. This book measures approximately 3"x3" and looks and reads like a kids book. It might have a total of 1500 words in all 70 pages of it.

On the good side, there are some decent pictures in there, but nothing spectacular.

The book jacket makes it seems like a really interesting story. The concept is very interesting.

I have read a bunch of books on writing recently and this work is a good example of what not to do.

I think I got to about page 30 before it was just too painful and I had to put it down.

Characters are introduced one after another in the first few short chapters. I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be rooting for. The villian appears in short order, but it takes a few pages to realize that he is the antagonist of the book.

We over hear his side of a phone conversation with his wife. The monologue is horrible. There is constant "telling" and very little "showing". The characters hardly do anything, it is mostly the authors explaining what is going on and why.

The point of view is bad, in fact, I don't think there is any point of view (other than all knowing narrator) and we track so many characters we don't know who to root for or who to feel sympathy for.

At least by reading the first little bit of this book I got a good lesson on what to avoid and real world examples of poor writing. In that is the only value I found here.