overly lurid, poorly organized
590140
This man's a reporter?  He makes frequent grammatical and syntactical errors, and doesn't seem to be very clear on the meaning or proper usage of many words.  He's come up with the concept of Arizona having no neighborliness or sense of community, and he just beats it to death.  Apparently Congresswoman Giffords and her fellow victims were shot because of Arizona building codes and low taxes.  The author leaps from topic to topic, and does not tie them together coherently.  And there was really no need to tell us where he lost his virginity.
1339727
The style sucks, which to be fair might be a result of being translated from Chinese; it completely fails to flow and I spent quite a lot of time thinking about how something was phrased rather than what was actually said.  Nothing in particular actually scared me, though I'm sure I was supposed to be scared at many points--for goodness' sake, these people are crawling over bags filled with human corpses!  I think I should be unhappy about that, but instead I was bored.

What infuriated me, however, was the fact that, after several hundred pages of this, I didn't actually get any payoff.  The whole damn book is a setup for the next one.  We spend the entire time getting to the mysterious film reel that will tell us what's in the mysterious abyss...and we don't find out.  All we know is that it's "shocking".  Well, whoop-de-do.  I'm fairly sure I'm supposed to be frothing to find out what the big mystery is by buying the next book.

I don't think you'll be shocked to hear that I am not.
4962983
With this novel, Rehder takes the art of multi-threaded narratives to an extreme.  This book lurches all over the place.  Every time some story momentum builds, he stops it in its tracks and switches to one of the other eight (or so) story threads that he's woven together.  This is a technique that I found EXTREMELY ANNOYING.  His previous work tended to also use this technique, but did not have nearly as many story lines going at the same time.

For the record, I have enjoyed the Blanco County series and can recommend others in the series.  However, because of the start-and-stop nature of this book, I cannot recommend it unless you really enjoy that writing style.  I suggest picking it up at your local library.
1556396
Too long and disjointed and highly improbable.
686315
I read every last page, sentence and word looking for some hint of talent or spark of illumination - there were none - hands down worst book ever written and such an injustice to L. Cohen and his legacy.  A few things that irked me were - misspellings, word misuse, repetition of of poorly expressed phrases and words (that were the authors own), between two chapters there was an entire paragraph repeated verbatim, between many chapters there were contradictions and badly drawn conclusions - ah, disgusting. This tripe should have never been put through a computer let alone published.
I could go on and on but I think that I need to throw up after reading this.
1071539
This is a disaster of a book in my mind. The reason I picked it up and stuck with it most of the way is because I recently read and enjoyed 'Creepers', one of Morrell's latest books. But where 'Creepers' was well structured, and the characters were interesting enough to engage the reader, here in 'Brotherhood...' the story is insanely bad, and the characters are all like cardboard.

What really bugs me is that this book is nothing more than an excuse for non-stop action. It's like if you took all of the action scenes out of seven or eight Ludlum books, pasted them together, and called it done. Morrell allows for no introspection by the characters here, they jump from one disaster to another, killing off half of the US armed forces along the way. Why? I really don't know. Some far-fetched assasination of the presidents friend has something to do with this.

This is a really bad book. I would suggest Ludlum's 'Bourne Supremacy,' Clancey's 'Debt of Honor' or even Morrell's 'Creepers' wayyyy before this book.
353348
This book has so many typos, misspellings, and missing punctuation that it is torturous to read. Every time the writer referred to rugs, she wrote "rags" and she consistently substituted "thrush" for trash. For example, "today is the day to vacuum your rags and take out the thrush." Her ideas were so disorganized that I couldn't understand her system; I came away with the knowledge that I should be able to keep my house as sterile as an operating room by spending only 30 minutes per day, 6 days a week (the writer will permit me to take a day off on Sunday). However, I was never able to figure out exactly how to implement the concept.  The reviewers who have given this book 5 stars must be the author's best friends.
2387868
I am horrified by this textbook. If anything, it clearly signals the anxiety around presenting information in textbook form to the post-book generation. Page one: "More than Just a Textbook". (whew -- here I thought I only had one 1200 page information delivery system in my hands; what a relief that I can spend additional hours browsing on-line resources for third and fourth attempts at clarity unachieved by the text). Page two: Safety Symbols. Whaat? (Please, textbook publishers, leave the lab to the teacher. Your job is NOT to create a 48 pound portable laboratory: just give us clear, concise descriptions of biology concepts.) Pages six-seven: 9 bios of the textbook authors with head shots. Pages ten-eleven: lists of seven different types of experts who helped make the book: 1) teacher advisory board; 2) reviewers; 3) content consultants; 4) safety consultants; 5) reading consultant; 6) standardized test practice consultant; 7) lab tester. We all know it takes a village to raise a child, but this is sheer madness: I much prefer one author with a unified sense (and style!) of presentation rather than nine authors and an army of rubber-stampers! But on it goes: pages 12-29 (sic!) a miscellany of tables of contents (folks: tables of contents are NOT the way you find stuff in books -- it's the index). Thankfully, this book doesn't skimp here -- there's a 31 page index. Finally, another 17 pages of horribly distracting pictures, diagrams, and multi-color charts on everything from 'how to read' to 'laboratory safety' a second set of safety symbols, field investigation safety (again, is there no teacher in the room? what high school student is going to read this?), tips on data collection and finally eight pages on how to measure and how to use lab equipment. Once past the inauspicious beginning, it's on to the text itself which is like listening to three biology experts all talking at once. Colorful pictures, charts, timelines, comment boxes, web cross-references, random career information swarm at the reader on every page, each "learning aide" vying for attention. You can almost hear them shouting: read ME! no, ME! There is clearly an anxiety afoot here either that the reader will not be sufficiently entertained or will never simply settle down and actually read the text. For kids who eat up science, this text will no doubt be fine. Why? Because kids who love science will plough thru anything driven by their passion. But as a high school biology text, the book is an abject failure: the average kid will give up on this text well in advance of page one. PARENTS: if your high school is using this text, complain to the school board!
2773123
Whoever decided on the exact order in which the articles in this book are organized, must have had some strange considerations and rules. It is not arranged alphabetically, it is not grouped by continent, and not even by country - so what policy has been followed by the creators of this book? When you have 1001 different items to describe and depict, then you must have a method of organizing the material. What is with the chaos and randomness? Also, the awfully small-sized photos do not serve any particular purpose, other than to further infuriate and irritate the reader. And the proportion (or rather "disproportion") of European versus other gardens is also inexplicable. And, certain countries are over-represented, while other countries don't even make it into this book whatsoever, despite the ambitious "1001 Gardens" title. Overall, not such a good book.
3815932
This book was horrendous!  I enjoy a good horror book, but this crossed the lines into some crazy perverse, unmedicated psychotic babble.  I got the kindle version because it was free and now I know why.  If you want to feel like scrubbing your brain cells with bleach then go right ahead and read this book!!  (I only gave it a star because Amazon made me!)
727576
This book is not a fundamentals guide to VoIP.  While it contains a wealth of information, it is poorly organized and goes into far too much depth for what is supposed to be a fundamentals book.  The depth at which certain topics are discussed (such as QoS and various protocols/codecs) is nauseating.  Of course QoS is important and a part of many networks today but describing a half dozen QoS methods while failing to mention 'auto qos' doesn't do anyone any favors.  The discussion of protocols/codecs is arguably even worse.  One might expect to see that level of detail on a CCIE Voice exam perhaps, but it has no place what again is supposed to be a fundamentals guide.  Other chapters such as 'Chapter 10: Voice Security' barely even talks about voice security other than mentioning segmenting voice traffic using vlans.  Instead, it discusses symmetric and asymmetric encryption, DHCP snooping, ip source guard, and BPDU/root guard.  Maybe its because the book was published in 2007 but its laughable to continuously see references to older technologies such as frame relay.  Bottom line, don't waste your time.  I didn't pay for this book, the company I work for did, but I've seriously contemplated returning it to Amazon.

If you want a book that you can pickup, enjoy reading, and learn about VoIP, see the CCNA Voice Cert Guide by Jeremy Cioara and Michael Valentine.  The information is up to date, relevant, practical, and easy to understand.&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/CCNA-Voice-640-461-Official-Cert-Guide/dp/1587204177/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">CCNA Voice 640-461 Official Cert Guide</a>
1406395
I am a law student, so I have read several law-related textbooks.  This textbook is, by far, the most poorly organized course book I have had to endure.  This is the time of year when law students everywhere are taking part in the old tradition of condensing their course notes into outlines that can be used to study for upcoming final exams.  Converting the major points from this book into a coherent outline is grueling, because the textbook is "organized" in such a schizophrenic manner.  At one point in the book, it basically admits to its own incomprehensible structure when it offers instructors and students the option of either continuing the book as put forth or following an "alternate" route that involves skipping ahead a few chapters, reading them out of order, and then returning.  It's a law book, not a Choose Your Own Adventure story!

To compound the problem, the book includes volumes of material that either should have been cut out or at least paraphrased.  For example, the book devotes considerable space to explaining the "standing" doctrine of the Fourth Amendment, yet glosses over subsequent cases that have substantially done away with the standing doctrine.
288806
I bought this book when I saw it rated highly on an Amazon list that contained quite a few other horror books that I had enjoyed reading.  I could not even finish this book; I forced myself through the first 50 pages before I gave up.  It was very poorly written, and full of bad cliches; in the first few pages one of the protagonists kills a bad guy by driving his nose into his brain using his fist.  Come on, Jack.  Not only is this incredibly overused, it's also not possible.

If your looking for a good gruesome read, look elsewhere.  Avoid this book.
3121666
This book is annoyingly poorly laid out.  It doesn't read like a text--authoritative, concise and logical.  Instead the content is scattered and chopped up by cutesy headings, anectodes and graphics that are often not informative or sometimes not even relevant.  Its appearance is like that of an article in a popular magazine. The one thing that was unlike a popular magazine, however was the intensive use of referenced material.  I picked out 8 random pages from the center of the book and studied them.  I found 28 distinct references and 124 sentences.  This works out to 3  references per page and an average of fewer than 4  sentences between references.  This struck me a fairly typical of the book as a whole.

This writing style is reminiscent of some bad term papers I have written in my undergraduate years, when I cared a lot more about getting the paper done and having a nice fat op. cit. section than I did about what I had learned.

Trying to learn from this book is like trying to drink from a fire hose when someone is constantly moving the firehose.  I am so weary of seven steps to this, one step of which contains six other steps to two different something-elses followed by five keys to something else all mashed on top of each other and chopped up by these "Mental Notes" and little italicized stories that have nothing to do with anything that will ever happen in my high school science classroom.  Those things really confused me until I realized they were a book layout trick and were apparently not intended to summarize or explain or synthesize or in any other way help me learn the random-looking pile of research summaries that surrounded them.

I have been taking formal education almost nonstop since I started 1st grade at age 4.  This includes two engineering degrees and a masters degree in education, so I have been exposed to some really badly written texts, but this one takes the cake.  I think I may have gotten dumber by reading it. If you really want to learn how to use cognitive science research to become a better teacher, I strongly suggest that you skip this one and get Daniel Willingham's "Why Don't Students Like School."
1114364
If you like bunches of disorganized newspaper clippings, unsupported assertions, and complete avoidance of a coherent thought or argument, this is the book for you.  If not, save your money and go elsewhere.

This writer reproduces the same hundreds of accounts of large skeletons seen in other collections, and (also like many of these other collections) doesn't put them in any order that makes any sense. He makes silly unsupported statements that should make anyone with even a bit of reasoning skills want to put the book down.  For example, In reference to one article that reports on some skeletons found but does not say how large they were, he insinuates that the lack of information on the size of the skeletons IN AND OF ITSELF is reason to suppose something was being covered up, because [paraphrase] "all archaeologists always report the height of the skeletons they find."  Another example is when he says that evolution shows us that species always go from large to small, not small to large.  What a bunch of nonsensical baloney.

He shows an uncredited photo that is labeled as an excavation at the Serpent Mound in Ohio. It shows a truly giant skeleton apparently at very shallow depth from rocky/sandy soil in the sun .  It sure doesn't look the Serpent Mound to me. Is this the Serpent Mound?  Really?  Come on. How dumb do you think your readers are?  How about a reference or a photo credit?

I see no evidence that any critical thinking or even significant preparation went into this book. To be honest, I stopped reading and started skimming pretty early in the book.  Bad.
1751263
Typical Clancy fair is buried in this book, hi-tech weapon systems, clever  spys and counter-spys, tension filled chases. Unfortunately it is  surrounded by lots, and I mean a LOT of crap. In particular we get treated  to Clancy prosetlyzing on abortion, race relations, human rights, and even  the difficulties of being President. There is a GREAT 350 page book in here  somewhere, surrounded by another 700 pages of useless verbosity. Why did I  slog through it? Because I was on an airplane that was going to be in the  air 10 hrs and sleeping was out of the question. If you must read this  book, borrow it from a friend or check it out from the library. Someone  needs to give Clancy's editor a better shot at cutting out the parts of the  book that don't contribute to the story.
2400955
Reading this book is kind of like untangling Christmas lights while wading through a swamp. It is wordy and disorganized, with at least "but you'll read about that later" on every page. The author claims knowledge of C is not necessary to make use of this book, yet unleashes on the reader a deluge of constant comparisons to C.

Ultimately, even though it was a textbook required for a course, I wound up replacing it with Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, to understand the general concepts, and when I needed a better understanding of all the minute variations and possibilities, I would refer to this book.

The quality of the book itself, as in the stack of paper glued together, was lacking. The pages in one section had been dogeared at some point in the printing process, resulting in them being cut improperly, and the spine broke rather severely around chapter 9 or so before I was halfway through chapter 1.