Richard did what again and again?
358477
This is an obsessively detailed, doorstop biography of Richard Brautigan whose life and/or times merit about half this much attention.  After a strong beginning, with a (far too) detailed look at Brautigan's childhood and youth (no one will accuse the author of not doing his research), the book falls into a routine of Richard ate a hearty breakfast here or there, he walked to meet a friend in the other place, they went drinking and got phenomenally drunk, so Richard played this funny prank on so and so, was incredibly sweet and gentle to a child, laid a young groupy, went to a bar and picked up another girl for kinky sex, woke up with a hangover, and, disciplined artist that he was to the end, wrote 8 pages in his spiral bound notebook.  Times 900.  The book contains a couple of truly good chapters--the first, dealing with Brautigan's suicide (including details of decomposition), and the one about the girls on the covers of Brautigan's early works, but that's 2 out of 59, making for a pretty tedious slog.  As I say, the sections on Brautigan's childhood are good, and the ones on the early days in San Francisco where Brautigan did his best work profit from the nearness of the beats and kindred: Creely, Spicer, McClure, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, and so on.  The hippy/Haight sections are mainly concerned with the activity of the diggers, and deadly dull because of the over-familiarity of the territory.  Brautigan's great creative period ended around 1966, with the completion of The Abortion, after that Brautigan paid more attention to his public persona than to writing.  When he resumed writing, with The Hawkline Monster in 1974, something had obviously been lost.  The bulk of this biography, if you think it worth it, tells of that dishevelled, alcoholic, disorderly self absorbed period and what, tragically, came next.  It is an unhappy tale of betrayed friendships, negligible sex, and endless drunks.  The author of this biography reserves judgement on Brautigan's works, remaining content to cite the contemporary critics.  While there are undeniably enthralling parts to this book, its nearly 900 pages could have profitably been edited to 400, and I, for one, would have been glad of it.
1136759
While it has some of his recent guesting skits, I don't know why 3 skits are repeated from the 2 earlier "Best of Will" volumes. Cheerleader, Dinner Scene & Actor's studio are repeated. It definitely makes Vol's 1+2 better purchases. They should have tried to do a commentary track like with Amy Poehlers dvd.
3246659
Is history repeating itself? I've watched this gem 3 times now. That's a lot for me.
3640764
Although very informative, I found that it jumped around from one subject to another, and then back again; repeating some of the same topics multiple times.
2283770
Richard III has to be turning in his grave over this book.

The entire premise is suspect, and quite frankly it is clear the author has done a self-insert of herself as an unknown mistress of Richard III. This seems to be the latest thing in Ricardian fiction, a mistress du jour, who Richard, of course loved more than he ever loved Anne Neville, and had spectular sex with.

Even though the book is free via kindle unlimited, it's not truly worth the time to read. Do yourself a favor and read either Penman's "The Sunne in Splendour" or Tannahill's "The Seventh Son." Both are superior works of Ricardian fiction.

Perhaps someday there will no longer be books where the author has inserted herself as Richard's mistress, but today does not seem to be that day.

The two star rating is only because the character of Francis Lovell is well-fleshed and probably the most likeable character in the book.
3317382
Thomas doesn't know why he isn't making any progress with lovely academic Jacqueline Kirby.  Personally, I think it's because he's sort of patronizing, and because he checks out 20-year-olds in front of her face.  But what do I know?
Anyway, he invites her to a Ricardian party.  He and a group of friends are avid fans of Richard III, and they are meeting to re-enact their favorite historical characters from the time period of his reign.  As an added bonus, their host, Richard Weldon, promises to reveal a long-lost letter exonerating Richard III of the murders of his nephews.
We meet the guests.  In order to follow the story, we have to remember all of these folks' names--both first and last, since some of them are referred to by their first name in one sentence and their last name in the next.  We also have to remember all their complex soap-operatic relationships.  On top of that, to follow the story, we also have to keep track of which character they are impersonating, *and* how that person died.  All of this, IMHO, is a pretty big outlay of brain cells for a 200-page "light read".
A prankster begins staging fake "murders" based on the deaths of the various historical figures.  These include such unlikely pranks as knocking a man out, then rigging up a pulley to dangle him headfirst into an empty wine barrel, thus referring to the Duke of Clarence's drowning in a cask of wine.  That's a lot of trouble to go to.  When I got to the end, I couldn't believe the culprit had gone to that much trouble for his/her goal.  Several of the pranks are unrealistically complex.
But they escalate, until Thomas and Jacqueline begin to suspect real danger at the manor.  Will they figure out who is behind them before somebody really ends up dead?
Overall, this is a contrived, unrealistic mystery which gets way too headache-inducing with all the different names one must remember--and I was *still* able to figure out the culprit fairly early on because only one person seemed to have a motive.  I wondered why I had bothered trying to keep track of all the characters.
In addition, the book is fraught with errors:  proofreading errors ("King Richarad"), editing errors (something referred to on the back cover never actually happens), and continuity errors (a man admires a woman's tan one day, and her aristocratic pallor on the next).  I do not recommend this book.
3604679
I thought the book was kind of a repeater. Some of the pages were repeated more then once, which I think should not happen that often. It was a good book otherwise.
3111815
however, if sinew was used less than a thousand times to describe flesh less than a thousand times i would be surprised. it was good book, but the the same description was applied over and over again to for certain events.
3850488
Really repetitive on the fact Richard keeps saying he grew to hate his mom and dad like a million times. I call bull shh on most of the killings and ways he did it.. Very demented in his head and a psychopath in deed but he needs to stop formulating fake ways he did this.. Stay clear of this book. I absolutely hate the ice Man and grew to hate him because of the lies and him just being crazy and killing innocent people. Stay clew r of this trash book
2970540
I found the story repetitive. If you're read his other books, it will recount bits and pieces from previous books. It got a bit boring.
471112
This one always makes me wonder about these two things...

1. Did he guess the audiences reaction would be what it is/was?

2. Who is listening to who?

Starting from the first question--its not really cage who does the performing on this cd--it is the audience reacting to his prompts(?). To give a brief description--Cage reads and reads some rather unconventional texts (Finnegans Wake or influenced by F.W) and the audience (Italian art students) get really agitated. Cage does not--he keeps reading and does not seem to notice/react to the chaos around him.

Brings us to the second question--who is the performer here? the angry art students? John Cage? Think of it as along the lines of 4'33--listening to whats around you. After all Cage says that a sound is a sound after all...

I can see this not being the most popular of his releases. I think its just fine.
2615398
Scanning through the other reviews, I find myself nodding and agreeing. I loved the first eleven books; Richard was powerful, a three-dimensional character I could relate to, sympathize with, and enjoy going with on his newest challenge. Kahlan was a powerful, independent woman who could stand up for herself and create great change in those around her. She was Richard's equal in every way, the feminine grace and wisdom to balance out his strength and temper.

And yet, in this installment, these things were lacking. Richard frittered around the People's Palace like a spoilt child, bemoaning the lack of faith the people had in him. He lost the loyalty of the people so easily, and drove himself into the ground worrying about their stupidity instead of doing his normal "so be it," thing and proving them all wrong. Kahlan wandered around in a daze and nauseated so much, I thought maybe she was pregnant, and hoped that maybe a story line about a child that rendered Shota's prophecy real would emerge and we could see what sort of character decisions face Richard, but no such luck. Kahlan just ran from phantoms, a terrified girl lacking logic.

There are so many holes in the story, I can't point them out here. But seriously, (SPOILER ALERT!) the Richard we all know and love wouldn't blithely try to turn on a potentially dangerous artifact without the whole of the instruction manual, especially if he knew exactly where it was! The Temple of the Winds is in the material world now, and within easy traveling distance if Richard used the Silph. If it's necessary to use BOTH halves of the manual, don't you think you should go find it before you start leaping to wild-ass conclusions?

Nothing happened in this book what-so-ever. What was in it would take up a tiny sliver of one of the other books. It's a simple fix that should have lead to a bigger challenge, and on up until Richard meets a new and sinister bad guy, not just the readers seeing the story unfolding.

This being said, the only character I found 'real' was the bad guy. So much more thought went into this new menace than into keeping Richard, Kahlan and company in character. And this new bad guy reminded me of Goodkind himself. Something about the tall, brooding, bald man with tattoos all over him speaks of a personal issue on the part of the author, at least in my opinion. He wants to bring down the Rahl house? Goodkind seems to want the same thing, with the way he wrote the characters and the hole-riddled plot.

Honestly, I feel that Goodkind's heart wasn't in this story, or The Law of Nines for that matter. There was so much potential in the story, and then he turned a complete one-eighty and threw out something that sounded cool but in the end fell far, far short of his previous successes.

I'm sorry, but I recommend that if you've read all the previous books, stop at Confessor, which is a perfectly natural ending. Imagine your own story spiraling out afterward, and leave Omen Machine alone. It'll just sour you.

And Terry, if you ever actually read this, I realize that sometimes you get bored with characters and lose interest in them. If that is the case, please just find a new set of characters that draws your interest. Leave Richard and Kahlan as they are, and their entire world. If your agent insists you write about them, punch him in the nose and then hand him a different manuscript. Because right now, your last two books felt... flat, passionless, and boring. Find something you enjoy writing about and go with it. I'm still rooting for you.
397641
I have had a keen interest in Richard III and the period of the Wars of the Roses since I saw&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Richard-III/dp/B004D2K9B6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Richard III</a>&nbsp;when I was seven years of age-and it scared the daylights out of me.
Since then I have read several works about Richard III including the magnificent&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Sunne-In-Splendour-A-Novel-of-Richard-III/dp/031237593X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III</a>,<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Fortune-s-wheel/dp/0385115822/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Fortune's wheel</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Princes-in-the-Tower/dp/0345391780/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Princes in the Tower</a>. As well as seen the novilistic&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Richard-III/dp/0792844041/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Richard III</a>&nbsp;set against the backdrop of a 1930's Nazi type dictatorship in an imaginary England of the time.

This book definitely portrays Richard in a saintly light, and the villains of the piece are the Woodvilles (a vivid and engaging portrayal of Earl Rivers, Anthony Woodville) and later on the camp around Henry Tudor (Warrington has Margaret of Beaufort, Henry's mother play a particular sinister central twist)
And Ricardians will be glad to see their hero absolved of all blame for the murder of the princes in the tower.
Quite a vivid portrayal of the times, but this is a science fantasy as and not just a historical novels.
It has a feminist take on the narrative, cantering around a the old pagan religion of the earth mother goddess Auret, existing alongside and in competition with Christianity reminiscent of the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Mists-of-Avalon-Mists-of-Avalon-1/dp/0140177191/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Mists of Avalon (Mists of Avalon 1)</a>&nbsp;and Rosalind Miles Guinevere series.
It is filled with fantasy creations, such as mythical war creatures called Greylixes , elementals and much sorcery. The central characters in the novel are a seer and a pagan priestess who is also Queen Anne's favoured lady in waiting
A parallel universe exists here linking us with a student in the present day obsessed with Richard III, and who engages with the ghosts of the characters and whose world is linked to theirs in a time warp.
You would have to have an affinity for fantasy to enjoy this.
I found the discussion of the future of Richard's image by the central character a bit tedious and didn't like the way in which the ending presented Richard having won the battle and survived in an alternate reality,
But Warrington writes beautifully and is a master word smith.
1416242
If the author had just told the story of Richard III without going into all the black magic and make-believe, I would have loved this story.
The end was much too confusing...did Richard die at Bosworth Field or not?  You can't tell with this account. Christine Schulz
3319090
See my review of season 2.  I wanted to make sure that Rex could do a good job more than once.  He did.
3444157
Every time I read another story about this time in history I am saddened and question how th I s could have happened with so many people not saying or doing anything. Here is a story of a young man who nearly sacrificed everything to stand up for what he believed to be right.
577193
Richard provided  us with wonderful music as well as Karen.  Do you know if Richard still produces music and/or cds, etc.