Average customer rating:
- 3 stars, plus one for nostalgia.
- One of Stasheff's best
- A long time favorite
- Excellent blend of fantasy and sci-fi
- Weak plot, poor attempt at been homorous
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The Warlock in Spite of Himself (The Warlock Series)
Cristopher Stasheff
Manufacturer: Ace Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0441005608 |
Book Description
Back in Print: the novel that launched the epic Warlock series.
In an interstellar romp that proves science and sorcery can mix, only hard-headed realist Rod Gallowglass can save the people of Gramarye from their doom by becoming--The Warlock in Spite of Himself--if only he believed in magic.
Customer Reviews:
3 stars, plus one for nostalgia........2006-08-27
Like many current readers of The Warlock In Spite of Himself, I had my first encounter with the series a long time ago. Stasheff and Rod Gallowglass were old early teenage favorites, discovered by me when the book was reprinted in 1982.
It makes for an interesting re-read. Fess is nearly as entertaining as a character as he was all those years ago. As a female reader, the female characters make me shudder-- worth remembering that the book was written in 1969. True to the time, a liberated woman was sexually liberated-- not any good at leading things. Stasheff's bone-headed Catharine is simply cringeworthy.
An urbane galactic traveller discovers a planet of lost colonists apparently stuck at a medieval period. His situation as explorer gets very interesting indeed when he discovers that this planet's witches can actually do magic...
I am no longer sure that I would recommend this book for a younger reader. Its biggest appeal is probably to folks like myself-- people looking for nostalgia of books that we read as teenagers. Still good for that purpose, and worth re-reading.
One of Stasheff's best.......2006-03-03
Put it on the same shelf as "Her Majesty's Wizard". The series probably ran too long, but the first couple in this series were great!
A long time favorite.......2005-06-06
I picked up this book in the early 80's and since then, has always held a special place in my heart. I really enjoyed Rod's self-depracating humor and the book's ability to blend fantasy and sci-fi into a cohesive whole.
In later novels in this series, I felt Rod was far too angry at times, since it was his rage that helped fuel his magic, but in the first novel, we don't really see that. What we do see is a warm tale, an author's deft touch, and a book that deserves to be in print for over 35 years.
Excellent blend of fantasy and sci-fi.......2004-08-13
What a treat this book was. I picked it up in a used bookstore and can't wait to delve into the rest of Stasheff's books.
The hero Rod Gallowglass is one of the most enjoyable heroes I have read in a long time. His adventures on a world where elves and magic exist are one of a kind. When the book started I thought I misread the back of the book and was reading a science fiction story but the fantasy element soon came into play and they both combined to make a truly wonderful story.
I recommend this book highly.
Weak plot, poor attempt at been homorous.......2004-07-31
Before buying a book I often check the reviews here in Amazon. Since this book had good reviews I went ahead and bought it; big mistake, this book is terrible. For the following reasons I recommend that you don't waste your time reading it:
- Very dated technology. He keeps on talking about a bad capacitor in his robot.
- Half of every page are wise cracks by the hero, which gets very tiresome after a couple of pages.
- All the dialogue is in old english using words such as: hast, thou, nay, etc. This is really painful
- This is supposed to be an action book with lots of sword fighting, but no one gets killed until the very end. When finally the good guys kill a bad guy, they all become very sad.
- The main characters are such wimps that they make the characters by Mercedes Lackey look manly. Rod wouldn't do the queen because he was in love with her
- There are a lot of absurds things in this book. Why did the witch all of the sudden fell in love with the main character and followed him every where? Why didn't anyone noticed that all the councilors looked the same? The most absurd thing of all was the reason why that planet was so important: "Because in the future psichic witches could replace communication electronics". Watch out Motorola and Cisco, Miss Cleo is going to replace you.
Don't waste your time with this lousy dated book. If you want to read good S.F. that mixes technology and magic try the Amber saga by Zelasny.
Average customer rating:
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The Warlock in Spite of Himself
Christopher Stasheff
Manufacturer: Ace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Stasheff, Christopher
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ASIN: B000NZX5Q8 |
Product Description
On the world Gramarye, superstition wasn't just a fact, it was a way of life. The Romantic Emigres of Earth had developed a unique society, bred especially for th gracious qualities of espers. and these talented espers took the wondrous shapes of elves, dwarves, witches, werewolves, ghosts, and other underground creatures. It was square Rod Gallowglass' mission to save the Gramaryans from themselves (?) or others (aliens?). His only help in this epic undertaking was his epileptic computer-brained robot-horse, Fess. Oh, and one other helpful thing: the Framaryans were sure he was a warlock. Of course, he was sure he wasn't... wasn't he?"
Book Description
We live in a world of violence. We see it in movies and on television news. It happens in our schools and in distant countries. And it happens most of all, Johann Christoph Arnold argues, in our hearts. It is there in these inner battlegrounds where change can and must begin. But it all starts with the individual choice to seek peace within oneself.
In this important work by one of our most admired religious thinkers, Johann Christoph Arnold shows the many paths toward inner peace taken by people from all walks of life. Guiding us toward a new vision of ourselves, Seeking Peace is a gift of love, wisdom, and hope. This book shows us how to end the long-standing conflicts within us, release the anger that blinds us, and take the first brave steps that--by the effort itself--will make us more peaceful people and the world a better place to be.
"A tough, transcendent envisioning of peace . . . arduous and courageous." --Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace
"Addresses important challenges facing our society." --Bill Bradley
Foreword by Madeleine L'Engle
Preface by Thich Nhat Hanh
Customer Reviews:
Superb collection of testaments to peace.......1998-11-21
True peace is controversial and hard-won, even attacked at times. The centerpiece for Arnold's book is the words of Jesus: "My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Unfortunately, the vast majority of us seek peace, happiness and fulfillment with a vengeance in all the wrong places. With hearts burdened by worry and care and a nagging sense of dread, our lives end up becoming a hectic morass of unpeace and disenchantment. The answer, says Arnold through the real life experiences of many friends, lies outside of ourselves. True peace is found by not trying to find it; by forgetting about oneself and devoting one's life to the service of others. Only the reading of the many personal accounts in this book will do these thoughts justice. Give yourself and others a true education, far above the din of saccharine self-help manuals and the watery spiritual soup served up in tomes everywhere. Read this book!
A bracingly incisive and timely exploration of peace........1998-11-18
I suspected I'd love this book from the humility apparent in the title phrase "SEEKING Peace": not "having" or "finding" but simply seeking. On the face of it, Johann Christoph Arnold's latest appears to promise less than the forgettable multitude of self-help titles which claim to offer easy methods of achieving peace--with their implication not only that peace is a commodity you can own, but also that once attained it will become a permanent attribute of your character. Arnold promises less, but what this book gives is something infinitely more valuable and original than a quickie peace fix.
This book offers and demands honesty with ourselves and others in our search for peace. Beginning with a section called "Paradoxes", Arnold recognizes that peace is a slippery concept that's easily warped by doublespeaking politicians, New Age gurus, or self-righteous activists. The center piece of the book is a section of fifteen "stepping stones" on the way to piece, including forgiveness, humility, honesty, conviction, and realism. The final section of the book expresses a vision of true peace: peace is creative force whose characteristics are justice, wholeness, and joy.
If I have one argument with the book, it is that the chapter on "Justice" might have been given a more prominent place in the structure of the book. A deepgoing meditation on the slogan "No justice, no peace", this chapter stands alone as an awesome statement of spiritual truth, which takes full account of the horrors of oppression while reaffirming the power of reconciliation. For me, this moment of synthesis is the heart not only of the book, but also of all sincere religious and social movements.
No one said it better than the author Jonathan Kozol, who is quoted on the back cover of Arnold's book: "SEEKING PEACE is a tough, transcendent envisioning of peace: neither fatuous nor sentimental, but arduous and courageous." Every person of good will, of whatever denominational or political stripe, owes it to themselves to embrace, and act on, Arnold's message.
Average customer rating:
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Seeking Peace
Titus Peachey
Manufacturer: Good Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1561480495 |
Book Description
Titus and Linda Peachey have collected true stories of Mennonite people around the world who have embarked on a journey toward peace. The stories in this book stuggle with some of the many practical concerns related to their attempts to live their belief in peace: o The Man Who Would Not Shoot: Conscripted into the Confederate army against his will, Christian ignored his commanding officer's order to shoot. when called to account for disobeying orders, Christian stated, "I didn't see anything to shoot at." The officer asked him. "Didn't you see all those Yankees over there?" "No, they're people," answered Christian. "We don't shoot people." o On the Brink of Calamity: Kuamba, a young church leader in the African country of Zaire, stands in the danger zone between two warring groups and, with calm assurance, announces, "My friends, my kinsmen. Why are you rushing so rapidly in the direction of fighting? Take your thinking out of the path of war. Fighting will destory everything. it will divide us perpetually. We are Christians. There is another way to resolve our differences." o Legitimate Self-Defense?: A Canadian Mennonite with Russian roots reflects on the pain of deciding, as a young man, whether to join the Selbstschutz, a self-defense group organized by Mennonites during the Russian civil war to defend themselves against the cruel plundering of bandits. o The Man Who Loved His Persecutor: An Indonesian man, the victim of racist violence, invites his persecutor to supper. "To be honest," he tells his children later, "I cannot forget what he did to me, but our Lord tells us to love, even our enemies." o Impossible Choices: Is it appropriate to refuse military service and continue to pay taxes that go for military purposes? An Ethiopian man relates his struggle. In this.collection are more than 70 true stories (not sermons!), some satisfyingly resolved, others considerably open-ended, about ordinary people trying to live peace.
Book Description
The ongoing violence, despair and paralysis among Israelis and Palestinians resemble the gloomy period in South Africa during the late 1980s. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley show that these analogies with South Africa can be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for two purposes: to showcase South Africa as an inspiring model for a negotiated settlement and to label Israel a "colonial settler state" that should be confronted with strategies (sanctions, boycotts) similar to those applied against the apartheid regime. Because of the different historical and socio-political contexts, both assumptions are problematic. Whereas peacemaking resulted in an inclusive democracy in South Africa, the favored solution for Israel and the West Bank is territorial separation into two states.
Adam and Moodley speculate on what would have happened in the Middle East had there been what they call "a Palestinian Mandela" providing unifying moral and strategic leadership in the ethnic conflict. A timely, relevant look at the issues of a polarized struggle, Seeking Mandela is an original comparison of South Africa and Israel, as well as an important critique on the nature of comparative politics.
Customer Reviews:
Objective, clear-eyed and imaginative.......2006-08-09
I love this book - it is so perceptive, carefully argued, and well written. I have been working on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for several years and I have learned that most writers on the subject are emotionally involved one way or other. They see things through a tinted lense and this doesn't just color what they see, it changes what they see completely. Suddenly, one is greater than ten, and black is white. The authors, Adam and Moodley, are outsiders with no axe to grind and so are refreshingly objective and honest. They see the situation with clarity.
What they say is most helpful. They explain why we cannot derive too much hope from the South African experience in which the oppressed native people whose land had been taken by powerful invaders ultimately prevailed. When you really dig in, as they do, you see that the situation is different in nearly every important specific. This is valuable as we don't need peacemaking proposals for Israel/Palestine that amount to wishful thinking based on a superficial understanding of the South African success.
I agree with their conclusion that a unitary binational state offers the best chance for long-term stability, is fairest, and in some ways is the least disruptive solution as the settlers could remain where they are and there would be no more talk of expelling the Israeli Arabs who are outbreeding the Jews. The unitary binational state is the goal... but how to achieve it, this is the problem.
I have to disagree with their conclusion that the way to achieve the unitary binational state is to go for a two-state solution now, and this will be a stepping stone to the unitary state. I think an independent Palestinian state is certain to fail - Israel for its own security reasons will make sure that such a state, filled with people who hate Israel, is impotent, i.e., a failure. Why then would the Israelis relent and welcome union with a failed state and people even more resentful of what the Israelis have done to them? Two-states is not an "interim solution" but a dead-end.
I see the challenge as figuring out how to induce the Jews to enter into a genuine unitary binational state. I think the path to peace involves understanding the Israeli psyche, their group narcissism, and figuring out how to address it. As Adam and Woodley say, "A binational state will not arise without minimal mutual trust in the possibility of peaceful coexistence and mutual recognition of the two people." So true. Such a challenge. I wish the path to peace was obvious but it is not.
One aspect that is not addressed in this book is that there never will be a Palestinian Mandela as the Israelis will not permit one - they would assassinate or deport him. In fact, there was one: Mubarak Awad. He barnstormed all over the West Bank and Gaza beginning in 1984 and was instrumental in getting a non-violent campaign going in 1987, the First Intifada. But the Israelis treated him as an arch-terrorist and he was arrested and deported. The Israelis are seeking Mandela too, not to achieve peace, but to kill him.
This book is an important building block to peacemaking and every peacemaker should read and digest its message.
Searching for Peace.......2006-05-29
Adam and Moodley's book "Seeking Mandela" deals with the current situation in the Middle east and tries to see what can be learnt from the South African case that could be useful in understanding the conflict in the Middle East.
The book gives a very thorough picture of the conflict both historically and up to date. For anyone who is interested to understand the situation and the different views that exist in the region this book a very good resource.
Although critical of the Israeli Occupation and of the Israeli and Palestinian leadership, the authors show a strong compassion for both people. A genuine attempt to use the south african experience not as a way to attack Israel but in a search for possible answers towards a peaceful solution.
Being an Israeli, terribley concerned about the deterioration in our area, and longing for peace and a just solution for all people in the region, I found this book very supportive and interesting.
Shameless.......2005-08-30
This book displays incredible closed-mindedness. I've read plenty of books about Israel. Some say Israel is right to defend the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens. Some say it isn't. But until now, every one of them has given some semblance of a justification for its stance. This book is an exception. It simply takes it as a given that Israel is Wrong with a capital W. It was Wrong for it to incur the wrath of the Arabs. It was Wrong to build illegal homes on Sacred Arab Land. For Adam and Moodley, it is not necessary to give some bogus history of the Middle East to defend such a conclusion. To them, it is simply Truth. To me, it is simply a Lie that can be stated in ten seconds but takes years of work to expose. That's one of the powers of lies: they destroy in seconds what civilization has taken years to build up.
The authors pretend to be reasonable. They are nothing of the sort. They boast about having talked to all sorts of Jews and Arabs. But they have learned nothing from them. They repeat some of the arguments they have heard. But they do not understand them at all. They sympathize with those who are being hurt on both sides of the conflict, without once doubting that the Israelis are Wrong.
It never occurs to the authors that in a just world, in peacetime, the Israeli Jews would simply buy up 20,000 or 40,000 or 60,000 square miles in the Middle East and make it bloom, improving the economy of the area. And that no one would challenge the ability of Israel to stand on its own feet, treat its own citizens properly, or hold on to its own land. It is beyond their imagination to picture, as I do, Israel as a Bantustan, with racist Arabs refusing to let Jews pollute neighboring nations by buying homes and living there.
Nor, in their closed-mindedness, do the authors realize that many rational people see Israel as being entitled to its land. Instead, they imply that the only people who could think such thoughts are closed-minded zealots who are "beyond rational persuasion."
When antizionists shout down Zionist speakers on campuses, the authors complain that opposing such bullying would "ban all discussions" and shirk "rational, analytic debate where it should be encouraged." They insist that the logic of Zionism requires that Arabs be second-class citizens in Israel, if not completely expelled. That's nonsense, of course. Zionism is simply human rights, and what they say is its opposite.
The authors come up with contradictory arguments about demography, saying that Jews can't be a majority in little Israel but then dismissing the idea that an Arab "right of return to Israel would threaten its Jewish majority!
The authors discuss the idea of shaming people into acting morally. I wonder if the National Socialists in the early 1940s could have shamed the Slavs, Jews, Roma, and others into killing themselves. Somehow, I doubt it. Moreover, I even more strongly doubt that such actions would have been moral.
The authors regard Israel as a fluke of nature, created by pogroms, slaughters, and so on. It does not occur to them that Jews were going to flock to the Levant as soon as it became possible for them to do so: emancipation as the cause of Israel just escapes them.
The authors say that there are good and bad things about Zionism. And that "Zionism" ought not be a term of opprobrium! But I wonder what the good things might be when simply acquiring land is considered by them to be an act of displacing Arabs!
I have never seen the case in favor of terrorism made so loudly internationally as it has been for Yasir Arafat and his gang of thugs. But the authors complain that their case is represented poorly in the Western media!
Adam and Moodley argue in favor of a Truth (and Reconciliation) Commission. I strongly agree. I think they display their closed-mindedness by not even dreaming of what it might discover. They are right that it would find that some Arabs were expelled from their homes in 1948. It might discover plenty about what the Arabs did to the Jews, of course, but I wonder if they realize just what this might mean. They do say that it would find that there was indeed a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem long ago. Good for them. But there is so much more. And, oh yes, they even say that being Christian is not necessary for reconciliation. As a Pagan, I'm glad to learn that!
The authors display shock that anyone with liberal credentials could support the Israeli fence which had to be put in place to defend the lives of Israelis against suicide bombers. They wonder how 83% (of Israeli Jews, presumably) can support defending the lives of their fellow Jewish citizens, even those who live in Ariel or Maale Adumim. I, in turn, wonder how Adam and Moodley can deny that Israel has a duty to defend those lives, and I would feel the same way even if I thought that Israel ought to cede Ariel and Maale Adumim to the Arabs.
If the Levantine Arabs had been represented by Mandela, not Arafat, would there have been peace? I have no idea. But I'm sure that having a thug like Arafat lead the Arabs precluded peace. The authors say that even Mandela could not have brought peace. And they conclude that Israel is unwilling to have peace while the Arabs lack the capacity to achieve it. This conclusion is total nonsense. If enough people believe it, maybe we'll avoid peace for a very long time.
This book is simply awful.
Customer Reviews:
A nice book for achieving peace of mind.......2006-06-11
I personally find this book an amazing look into the psyche of our common man/woman and his/her problems and how to deal with these issues. The vast amount of subject area covered in this book, for its length, is quite surprising. It seems that the author's ideas were very ahead, and to an extent are still, of their time. Many people could benifit from the completion of this book. This is a highly recommended read.
Product Description
Peace, from a political perspective of as a cessation of violence and hostilities. involves a compromise of some sort. The rights of both the one in power, as well as the underdog are recognized. Borders become clear and defined and, eventually, there is often some form of reciprocity, such as trade agreements.
Peace from God's standpoint is, however, a great deal more. As usual, God looks at the heart, as it is "out of the heart that the issues of life flow" (Proverbs 4:23). God's desire is not merely a cessation of hostilities, but, rather, true reconciliation. As a believer, I must choose my brother's welfare even above my own. Jesus requirements are radical and thorough.
This book contains perspectives on peace written from the vantage points of believers who live in the most volatile region in the world: The Middle East.
Though we love and are committed truth, our kingdom is not of this world and our loyalties, therefore, must be eternally focused.
We look, therefore, to Him who is our King and our Peace to come and reign with righteousness and justice over our beloved and war torn land. And, in the meantime, we seek to be a light to those who are lost, as we seek to love each other in Spirit and in Truth.
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