Sterling Reviews

Used as a textbook for MS program. Presented a good overview of logistics and how one part of teh supply chain effects the others.

I have found this book extremely useful and can reccommend it with the confidence that it will help every person involved in Logistics in either: 1) Revise personal experience in the light of customer service and marketing research. 2) For beginners in the field, to develop a sound conceptual basis in Logistics & Suply Chain Management. I used as reference for my own work and I can assure that following this approach will ensure that different persons with different background & experience can understand the key issues.
I have not rated this book with 5 stars since while it infuses concept, it will not provide system design tools. Perhaps this is better, since it will allow for creativity instead of clonation, the first being what I feel is the best engineering practice everywhere. If you want to contact me about this book, you are welcome.

Ensure quality supply of all products in a timely and cost effeicient manner.

I was told about this writer by a friend of his. I was expecting a lot from his book, but I found it to be very disturbing. Aunt Delia was a sick character and I didn't feel this was a "coming of age" story, but a twisted one. The writing was from Travis' point of view, but still seemed a bit simplistic. I haven't read any other novels by this author, but I hope this is not his usual subject matter. I wouldn't recommend this book to my friends. I finished this book with the same feeling I had when I saw the movie "Deliverance".

I just finished reading "Sweet Dream Baby" and, although I agree by and large with most of the reviews I've read, I had to ask this question: Didn't anyone else who read this book find "Aunt Delia" a bit weird? Granted, she is only 16, and 16 is a tumultuous age when good judgement may not be topmost, but I was not all that sympathetic to her character. She seems intelligent, but continuously seeks to put herself in bad situations. She was treated very shabbily by a past love yet has not learned from this at all. She trusts her 12 year old nephew with her deepest secrets yet lies to him at the most compelling moment--leading him to come to her "defense" and set up the whole tragic downhill slide at the end. She has to know that what she is allowing her nephew to do cannot be right. Even so, I found the story compelling enough until the ridiculous final scene involving Kenny. What seemed innocent and somewhat justifiable to that point suddenly crossed the line into evil--cold blooded and cruel. With his grandfather (Mr. Honesty and Manners) and aunt as his guides to adult life, no wonder Travis ends up where he does. What does his future hold? With a moral groundworks like he has been given, I wouldn't be too hopeful.

I won't spend time saying what has already been said so well by others. The reviews speak very well for this book and so they should. This book had me from page one and never let up. The only problem I had with this story was the age of Travis. I thought he was a little young for his character. I still give this book five stars and will read it again in the future. I also reccomend LAURA by Larry Watson and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW by Larry McMurtry

Although published by the Jove "Haunting Hearts" line, A Willing Spirit is more of a slice-of-life Americana novel than it is a "ghost story". There is a meddlesome ghost pushing the couple together, of course, but mainly the story is about the heroine trying to fit in with her fellow townspeople who treat her unfairly. Both the hero and the heroine are decent people, honestly portrayed, who are easy to like. I was very satisfied when they eventually opened up to each other and put an end to their repetitive cycle of non-communication. Pick up this one if you're in the mood for a slower paced, character driven novel.

Cynthia Sterling's second novel is a gem. A story of love between two individuals from different cultures in a small town in Texas in 1855. Tessa, a widow, hires half-breed, Micah, to help her take care of her farm, and finds herself immediately attracted to him. But the ghost of her dead husband, Will, who has hung around to watch over her, decides that a love affair between the engaging couple is the last thing he wants, and he sets about to disrupt their romance. Ms. Sterling's novel is, by turns, innocently touching, sweetly sensual and at times, hilarious, especially when Will whispers a suggestion into the ear of the local vicar to court Tessa, and is mistaken for the voice of someone higher up. Ms. Sterling spins an irresistible tale with A WILLING SPIRIT, and I can't wait for her next Haunting Hearts book.

Tessa and Micah's wonderful love story will stay on your mind long after you've finished the book!

Seems to concentrate heavily on the gay and lesbian aspects of SF. My wife and I found Eyewitness Travel Guides' San Francisco and Northern California to be much more useful for planning our trip there.

Two years ago, I visited SF for the first time, and I had the second edition of this book. Here we are two years later, and I recently bought the third, and most recent edition. Let me tell you: brilliant rewrite! This edition is even better written, and has better graphics and layout. The staff at Lonely Planet across the Bay in Oakland, sure do know their stuff. This book is for anyone that wants a concise, yet knowledgeable introduction to the history behind the City by the Bay, as well as good reviews on restaurants!

I've used the Lonely Planet series for travel in other parts of the world and L.P. has yet to disappoint me. Their city specific books (like this one) are small, so it's easy to carry with you and the numerous maps in the back are very useful. Each map has the locations marked for all the places noted in the book as well. Unlike other popular travel books, L.P. provides pictures of some of the more popular things to see; I find this very convenient since a picture says a thousand words. The authors of this book are also all San Fran residents and/or natives which made me feel like I was truely getting the inside scoop of where to go and what to do.

This is a rare book of erotica that intends to excite the mind as well as the body. One point that the reader from New England misses when she states, "this book survives as a piece of literature resurrected from the past" is that the author has cleverly invented a story under the guise of translating an actual artifact. Successfully, apparently. A careful reading gives the book the credit it deserves.

This story of a poetic concubine and her relationship to the general has many smaller stories scattered throughout like wonderful little presents. The Lady Onogaro, in order to endure her lover's visits, hires the services of a storyteller to whisper erotic stories in her ear while she makes love to the general. The larger story is also interesting, and told in a beautifully translated language. Lady Onogaro's discovery of what is important transcends time and culture.

Much of the poetry of the Lady Onogaro is also included (more presents), contributing to the pleasure of reading. I found the stories stimulating, and keep a personal favorite marked for special occaisons.

A pleasurable book for those who like their erotica with a dash of exotica.

A modern woman's trials through self-doubt toward self-acceptance, clothed in the robes of Heian Japan. The author knows her Japanese mythology. Subtle allusions to ancient tales enhance the narrative. While some of the erotic tales are full of frustration and cruelty, most of them are funny and tender. The fantasies are woman-centered, celebrating women's sexuality in loving detail. A few imagine women's revenge for ill-treatment. And, if you follow the thread of Onogoro's own life between the fantasies, you find the story of so many 20th-century women, trying to let their hearts and talents shine in a world not made for them. Onogoro succeeds. This is a fable of feminine strength.

It's a good solid read that went REALLY fast -- too fast perhaps. The book is rather fluffy, when you get down to it. I could have learned as much from 5 pages of charts and tables and statistics and about 40 pages of essays on the data.

Instead, this is written for the mass market, and mass-market are too easy. I like a more difficult read that makes me think. As far as financial books go, the trends are important, but not mind blowing either.

Still, I rate it three stars. Even that's a little generous, i feel.

The first four reviews, by the way, were submitted by the author's friends and family, very obviously.

I suggest a little consumer backlash here -- demand a real review, or rate the article "NOT USEFUL." :)

As an accountant and business teacher, I have long wondered about governement's indebted funds--Social Security Debt (at least 15 trillion in debt which is basically equivalent to the total value of American public stocks), Medicare Debt and other debts. This futurist book is one of the few that has been able to understand this. This futurist book is one of the few that even discusses this.

What most people don't know is that the budget uses crooked accounting and count the social security and medicare and medicaid cash-in flows as revenue in the budget, but they don't expense the debt. The result of this is having a budget surplus, despite going futher into debt. Right now, we are at least 25 trillion in debt and it will likely get worse. However, when baby-boomers retire, the cash-in flows in these funds will be huge out-flows.

So, even if the 5.7 trillion "budget" debt is taken care of by 2013 like Clinton says it will be, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid funds will go bankrupt at around that time too if we want to continue to use government for what it was more traditional used for like roads, schools, and police. There is simply not enough money to go around. Either we pay for social security and Medicare and Medicaid or we pay for roads, defense and welfare or we pay for the empty funds. If uncorrected, it will be the end of a free-market society and America will cause a global economic meltdown. I don't know, you decide what life will be like when the AARP, the most powerful interest group finds out that the social security and medicare and medicaid funds are bankrupt and cannot even come close to supporting themselves.

This is the conclusion I have reached and if you disagree and have the data to back it up, I would love to hear from you at tingoglia@hotmail.com because I get too depressed even thinking about it. Or, heck, if you agree, you can e-mail me too. I HIGHLY RECCOMMEND THAT YOU READ THIS BOOK. Vote Republican or Libertarian.

As a member of the financial industry, I'm always looking for hints as to which sectors of the market will do well in the future. This book is exactly what I was looking for. Using demographic trends, the authors have come up with some scenarios which will definitely change my outlook on the future.

For Edgar Rice Burroughs, life was relatively simple. Men fell into one of three categories: muscular heroes, ordinary types, and evil, greasy villains. Women existed primarily to act as universal lighting rods that attracted either the first or third category. Regardless of the universe that ERB wrote of, these constants held with predictable regularity. With the publication of AT THE EARTH'S CORE, he began yet another series that put the hero at odds with nature, evil doers, and beautiful, virtuous women. David Innes, the handsome hero, drills down to the center of the earth in a manner that brings to mind Jules Verne's tale, both of which posit a habitable, temperate core that supports a variety of lush, prehistoric life. Despite knowing that the earth's core was held to be molten, ERB did not hesitate to bend science for the sake of a good tale. ATEC possesses both the plusses of ERB at his best and the negatives at his worst. Like Tarzan, Innes is a likable, manly sort who feels at home regardless of whether home is a jungle or a tea room. The logic of how ERB gets his hero placed in an exotic locale is irrelevant and often purely unscientific. For his Martian (Barsoom) series, he merely had his hero, John Carter, gaze at the Red Planet to effect his transport there. For his inner world series (Pellucidar), Innes used a drill machine, a device that at least tries to be scientific. Once there, Innes has the necessary adventures with beasts, villains, and beautiful women, in this case Dian the Beautiful. The workings of the plot about how he finds her, loses her, and then finds her again are almost not to the point. Where ERB excels in his ability to place the reader, who is usually a 15 year old boy, in a realm that allows imagination to run riot. Events flow so smoothly that the youthful reader will probably overlook the negatives of ERB's prose style. In the world of ERB's muscular heroes, both hero and villain speak in the artificial, courtly dialogue that rings true only to the ears of the young. Coincidence runs rife to the point of ridicule. Beautiful women are haughty at first, but lusty later, and then only to the clean-limbed hero. His plots are often mirror images of one another. You can substitute the center of the earth for Mars, Venus, Africa, or wherever, and hero, villain, and lovely lady are interchangeable. Yet, despite all this, AT THE EARTH'S CORE is the kind of read that ought to be part of any kid's early mental universe. Reading Burroughs as a thirty year old requires a strong ability to suspend one's disbelief, but once having done so, the ride is usually worth the effort.

Having already created two highly memorable science fiction heroes in Tarzan and John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs begins his third major series with David Innes. With friend Abner Perry, they dive their "mole", or burroughing machine, straight through the earth's surface where they discover the savage land of Pellucidar. Here, where dinosaurs still exist and mankind is enslaved by the reptilian Mahars, David and his friend are forced to face unknown perils and survive in a hostile environment (and of course, win the beautiful lady).

"At the Earth's Core" is another highly entertaining science fiction novel from ERB. Even though his format is formulaic, you're always assured of fast paced adventure in his novels. Not as groundbreaking as Tarzan or as strong as John Carter, The Pellucidar series is still a worthy addition to Burroughs body of work, and it gets an extra star for the nostalgia of being a personal childhood favorite.

...so one day independently wealthy David Ennis is confronted by his scientist buddy Abner Peery who has just invented a vehicle that essentially drills through the earth. (If the reader is into descriptives it looks like the device Dr Evil of Austin Powers fame has devised to take over the world.) They decide, "Well, let's try it out." and the reader is then treated to a journey to middle earth which is similar to Jules Verne's, but not as serious. I would say that Burroughs brings us satire similar to Voltaire's "Candide" or Swift's "Gulliver's Travel". The inner world, Pellicidar, is one where if you are not careful, you can be awake for days because the sun never sets or rises--that sun being the molten earth core rather than the sun we all know of. In Pellucidar, the various dragons, apes, and reptiles and mutations of such, are heads of gangs, tribes and kingdoms in the middle earth. And the royalty has beautiful sorcery princesses like Dian the Beautiful, who David falls for and who leads him into an innerworld adventure taking the reader to an unforgettable serial-pulp style reading enjoyment. If you dig Robert E. Howard or Jules Verne or Rice Burroughs' Tarzan series you will definitely love this. My opinion is that this is one of those series that could stand some revamping and the reader will feel that this is somewhat dated but, I feel that it is still well-worth the investment of time and $.

When I imagined this book as I movie, I thought it would be like a futuristic movie set in the 1950's, with everything the same, the cars and clothes and hair, except for a few overdeveloped gadgets, a little bit like Minority Report. The gadgets are not attempts to master nature but very close imitations of nature, the Glass Bees of the title. They are unheimlich, to use a German word that I don't think Junger ever uses. The Zapparoni character reminded me more of Larry Ellison than Bill Gates, because Gates has a big house with lots of gadgets but Ellison transplanted an entire Japanese house and garden to America. Zapparoni shares the same Japanese perfectionism and fascination with miniatures. Junger also has some thoughts--very little happens in the book, which is almost a short story--on the connection between the perfection of technological means and dismemberment. Well worth reading.

The Glass Bees is a short novel about power, technology and nature. It's also the story of a life; the life of a veteran german captain that has lived in two very different worlds: the "old" world where words like "courage" or "pride" still meant something and a "new" world where the words have lost their meaning, where the power of the State has almost been surrended to huge high-tech transnational firms and where efficency criteria leads the behaviour of most of the peolple. The story tells the way in which the old world's man tries (unsuccsesfully most of the times)to fit himself in the new world.
In my opinion The Glass Bees is an outstanding novel althoug -I have to say it- not one of the 10 best books I have ever read as another reviewer says.

Captain Richard trained as a swashbuckling cavalry officer, but increasingly mechanised forms of warfare forced him to become a tank technician. Now, down on his luck after a life that reads like a radically compressed history of the twentieth century, he approaches the industrialist Zapparoni for a job. As the book came out in the 1950s and its author was born before the turn of the century, Zapparoni's products are called "robots" or "automata"; but they're a far cry from Asimov's Robots and Mechanical Men. As Bruce Sterling points out in his intriguing introduction, some passages from The Glass Bees, taken out of context, might easily have come from a computer magazine of the 1990s, blaring the wonders of miniaturisation and CD-ROM. The bulk of the novel comprises Richard's meditations before, during and after his interview with Zapparoni, and Junger's prescience is impressive not only in terms of the technology he envisages, but also in terms of its effect. Richard notes, for example, that the artificial bees' total efficiency in collecting nectar - not a drop left inside - will simply cause the flowers to die off through lack of cross-pollination. Written with brilliant and chilly clarity, and climaxing in an episode of restrained horror and terrifying ambiguity, The Glass Bees is an examination of the moral and cultural price of technology, from the perspective of a man who had seen plenty. However, although Sterling compares him with Celine, Junger is neither rancorous nor misanthropic. Indeed, despite the fact that Richard's wife is mentioned only a few times and never appears in person, the book is also a rather touching affirmation of human love.

A very bland, boring book. Predictable, too-often-used plot that dragged on and on. Perhaps it would have been better if the author hadn't dwelled so much on Nixie's beauty. Or maybe if she had developed the hero's character more. Or if the ghost was important to the story (instead of a requirement for the "haunting" series). It doesn't matter, in the end, I didn't care.

An amazing story with a cast of characters that are simply riveting! This is such a great "bubble-bath" book! Absolutely exquisit in every way, you've got to read it to believe it!!

Just one recommendation: It is quite clear that Ms. Sterling did not thoroughly research the uses of certain food products before writing about them. Don't try the honey thing at home kids! (Not only is it sticky, apparently honey crystallizes too!! OUCH!!) ;)

Enjoy it everybody!!!

Another charming book from author Cynthia Sterling. As always, the characters come alive, and the setting is so real, you'll feel like you've been to the spa in Welcome Springs, Texas. GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST is sweet, funny and sexy all at the same time. The scene where Jed licks the honey off Nixie's fingers is delicious! You MUST read this book! It's a charmer.

I almost would say that this book is as much about the Philippines as it is about the fun loving dictators the Marcos's. The book covers about 50 years and covers more then just the rise to power of these two, but also detail in what was happening in the country as a whole. I came away thinking the book could have been called the Marcos Crime Family, I guess if you are in power for so long it is easy to keep slipping more and more down that path. I was also interested in how much the USA was involved in keeping them in power, sure it probably seemed like the best thing to do, but the country suffered under his uninspired rule for so long how many years will it take for them to get up to the level of many of the other countries in Asia?

You can tell that the author is an investigative journalist because of the straightforward, detailed account he gives. This book comes at you almost like the author had an ax to grind. I would have liked a bit more on the end - what happened after they left? Overall the book was enjoyable and worth the effort.

This book manages to shed a light on the Marcos Dynasty & what they have done to the Phillippines. Whilst some incidents seemed to be far-fetched, for those who have lived in Asia for a long time, the incidents seem to make sense afterall. Connections & corruptions come hand-in-hand. The book also dented the shiny armour of USA of their involvement in local politics. The book is incomplete on its own. Rather, if we read all the book offerings by Sterling Seagrave such as the Yamato Dynasty, Soong Dynasty, & Marcos Dynasty, we would get a better picture. I suppose the author is running short of space. otherwise, I wouldn't mind knowing the aftermath of the Marcos Dynasty after they have shifted to the States & also the former wife that Ferdinand has left behind. Otherwise, this book is a very good effort, indeed.

What an excellent book. I heard the unabridged version of this on 13 cassettes and it was a fabulous read - one where the amounts of money stolen by the Marcos' from the Phillipines are so atrocious, that halfway through the book I started to lose sense and magnitude of billions of dollars and 1000's of tonnes of gold. I still came out wondering how could a person so untiringly loot his people and how much really is enough? Well and truly an Asian story of lost opportunity and time.