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		List Price: $9.98		Publisher: Vox (Classical) Salesrank: 669970 Released: 1999-12-14
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Tracklisting:
1. Suite Bergamasque: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day? - Claire de Lune
2. Canon In D For Strings And Continuo: Love Medley - Canon In D For Strings And Continuo
3. How Do I Love Thee?: How Do I Love Thee? - Au Bord d’Un Source
4. Air On The G String: To His Coy Mistress - Air On The G String
5. The Passionate Shepherd To His Love: The Passionate Shepherd To His Love - The Nymph’s Reply - String Quartet No. 2, Mvt. I
6. Threepenny Opera: I Love Thee - Polly’s Song
7. Tales Of Hoffman: If Thou Must Love Me - Barcarolle
8. If You Were Coming In The Fall: If You Were Coming In The Fall - Serenade For Strings; II Larghetto
9. The Ecstasy: The Ecstasy - Quintet For Clarinet & Strings In B Minor Op. 115, II Adagio

		List Price: $9.98		Publisher: Fat Wreck Chords Salesrank: 1090328 Released: 1998-05-05
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Tracklisting:
1. Too Close to See
2. Exhumation of Virginia Madison
3. Deville
4. Mind of My Own
5. Reason to Believe
6. Crossroads
7. Paperwalls
8. Ice Burn
9. Ultimate Devotion
10. King Alvarez
11. Asking for the World
12. Tattoo
13. Just Like Me
14. Matchbook

Customer Reviews:
Certainly one of the best
I’m sure most would agree that Strung Out is one of the greatest bands in existence. Yet they remain relatively under-appreciated I think. This is thier second best album, but still one of my all-time favorites. The guitar sound is tight, crunching and fast…impeccable, really and there is not one bad song. An amazing follow-up to STWB. The closing track is the highlite for me. This is one of the best for sure

A punk rock opus
This album is a real and honestly beautiful work of art. The tracks take you on an the emotional trip through thoughts and feelings that are so real that they strike a nerve. The first song is almost an invocation to the muse of being twenty-something and confused. It then then travails through an analysis of one’s mental state and interpersonal relationships, climactically ending with a break up ballad. This is truely one of the best punk rock concept albums since Husker Du’s Zen Arcade.

Good punk record
I have heard a lot of punk records from this period and i must say that this band is for real. I haven’t heard any other of their releases, but this one is seriously one of the best punk records I have ever heard (I have an extensive backround in the roots of punk rock). This came out right before punk became “pop” which I have a feeling will never change in my lifetime, which is a shame because most of the kids who listen to “punk” these days don’t have any clue what real punk rock is. This is the end of a dying generation, so get it while it is still available. For those of you who look for singles, in my opinion the first three tracks are worth the price of the cd alone and the last two tracks make this album unforgettable.

I like this album. Or do I?
I remember listening to this record like 5 years ago and telling myself this kicks some serious ass. And even to this day I still rock out to it every now and again. Songs like ‘match book’ and probably my personal favorite strung out song ‘deville’, don’t f*ck around, nor does this punk and metal fusion called ‘Twisted by design’. It’s more metal than their earlier stuff and less metal than their later stuff. I personally prefer the punk side of Strung Out and if it wasn’t for Suburban…. this would be my favorite Strung out album.

totally awesome and flawless album
Owning all of Strung Out’s albums (all of which are good bordering on excellent) i can honestly say that TBD is the most complete and best of them all. It is in fact the finest example of fast/well consructed and brilliantly played punk music that is out there (with the drum work of Jordan just simply beyond compare or description–the man is the ultimate drummer EVER).As soon as the opening bars of Too Close To See burst from the speakers it is a real white knuckle adrenaline ride through all that makes Punk the greatest form of music out there—drumming that is totally phenomenal, searing dual guitar work, solid bass from the late great Jim Cherry, all topped off by the crisp/spot-on vocals of big Jason Cruz (a recipe that is without compare–with only prime-time Joey Cape inspired Lagwagon coming even close). Tracks; well every one has it’s own merits but i would say that the opening three tracks are ballistic (Too close To See, Exhumation Of V.Madison & Deville), following up with the speedy/tightly melodic Crossroads and with the final two tracks(Just Like Me & Match Book) being the fitting finale to this absolute masterpiece of music. I have had this record for 3/4 years and it never stays off my stereo / car CD player for longer than about 2 weeks ( and i have a collection of 350/400 punk/metal albums to select from). If you havent got a Strung Out album i have 2 recommendations; 1) GET ONE NOW (they are the best band EVER); 2) Start with this one (ultimate punk CD) and follow up swiftly with Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues–which is almost as superb as TBD.

Just buy this record ASAP and pay homage to the gods of fast punk

(and then catch them live for the finest show you will see)-i can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

		List Price: $5.29		Publisher: Laurey
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		List Price: $10.99		Publisher: Dimensions Crafts Salesrank: 58068
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		List Price: $17.95		Publisher: Doubleday Salesrank: 48288 Released: 2007-06-12
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Customer Reviews:
Too much tell, too little show
Full disclosure: I was not able to read the whole book–after the first third I skipped straight to the final 4 chapters and did not sense that I had missed much.

The heart of the problem, for me, was the all-knowing, all-exposition development of the story. The reader is told a lot: thoughts of characters, their development, the history of various characters and peoples. At the same time there is relatively few conversations. My impression is of much interior monologue and little dialog. What is lost is a sense of mystery and discovery. So many details, but so little sense of the actual character. In the end, I found I didn’t care much for any of the protagonists.

The flatness of the psychology of the characters was not balanced by an interesting plot. Realpolitik is not exactly new in modern fantasy nor is the addition of a wide range of ethnic groups. In terms of pacing, I found it difficult to get a sense of how fast time passes.

A book that seemed to have a lot of potential, but in the end did not work for me.

***Spoiler Alert*** A review of the audio AND the written versions
***Spoiler Alert ***

My Acacian Journey - A review of both the book of CD and the book itself

Acacia has been an unusual experience for me. I began by first getting the unabridged version of the book from the library (all 23 disks), and listening to it nonstop during a two-day road trip. So I felt quite immersed in the story, but felt I was missing too much detail and nuance, due to having it read to me. I stopped listening at about disk 17, and decided to finish, instead, by reading the actual book. But “The Name of the Wind” became available at the library, so I spent the next few weeks reading that. I decided I’d begin Acacia (the book this time) from the beginning. That tells me I did enjoy the story, enough to read most of it all over again only 3 weeks after hearing it on disk. A few notes on this experience:

Hearing the book first meant that I was familiar with how the strange names of people and places were pronounced. Most striking of all was the book’s subtitle, “The War with the Mein.” According to the reader, Mein is pronounced like “mean.” Which goes against the rules for English, certainly. I assumed it was pronounced as the German word “mein,”, that is, like the English word “mine.” This seemed a bit wrong to me. Why make up a name that everyone is certain to mispronounce? And it seems rather hokey to call your bad guys the “Means”. Reminds me of Yellow Submarine, except these guys weren’t blue.

But it was really cool to see these words after hearing them read to me for 20 hours or so. Strange, but true. I really enjoyed reading it after hearing it. And this confirmed for me that you really do need to *read* a book. Having it read to you is not good enough, though it is entertaining when driving for 10 hours straight. But there’s no stopping (as you can do when reading) to think about what someone has said, or what just happened. The reader just rolls on. So that’s a limitation of the medium. Hitting the pause button would be much more disruptive of the fictive dream than simply looking up from the page and thinking.

Finally, the voice of the reader is not like the voice in your head, which in my head at least, does not sound like a whiny twit when reading the words spoken by the women in the book. The reader attempts to come up with a different-sounding voice for every major character. He does a great job with the mens’ voices. Meander especially was chilling to listen to. But the women - especially Corinn — came across as very small-minded and weak. Reading the book, Corinn came across rather differently. A much stronger character, for sure. Durham’s handling of women, however, could be much better. He has the two male siblings, Aliver and Dariel, sent off to lands where they learn fighting skills. He send the two female siblings, Corinn and Mena (unfortunate name, that — sounds too much like “Mein”) to places where they don’t learn fighting. He then has Mena learn, in a single chapter, how to become a legendary fighter, and it just doesn’t wash.

As for the story itself, here are my thoughts. Obviously, I liked it enough to essentially “read” it twice in a two-month span. I never do that. The writing style is very good, and better than 90% of the doorstop fantasy tripe out there. This is a first fantasy novel for Durham, who has heretofore only written historical fiction. Durham says, “Acacia is a novel about the myths empires create to explain their crimes. It’s about how difficult it is to join idealism with action. It’s about ambition and hope and dealing with the disappointments inflicted by a callous world. It’s about family legacy, sibling rivalry, and striving to correct past wrongs.” This comes across quite well, and these strong thematic elements make “Acacia” an important fantasy novel. Durham, an African American, was also attempting to include a vast racial diversity, and in that I don’t think he was very successful. The various tribes all seem cut of the same cloth, and rather hackneyed cloth at that. They’re stereotypical primitives. Durham’s imagination seems to have failed him here, I’m afraid. The Meins and the Acacians seem very much alike, and the rest come across as third world knockoffs. Having read a lot of science fiction, I’ve seen many authors do a better job of imagining alien cultures. Durham is falling back on stereotypes from our own world too much, I feel.

Another nagging problem was that I felt the presence of a story outline. The characters often seemed to be fulfilling the needs of that outline rather than acting according to their true natures. The best example of this was the very end, when Corinn suddenly beomes very powerful and cunning. There was no foreshadowing this development. She was too obviously advancing the plot, and not in a way the reader expects.

The death, at the very end, of Aliver, seemed wrong. We see Aliver grow steadily in power and wisdom for 550 pages, and then he foolishly agrees to a fight with Meander. I could almost see Durham saying, “Okay, for the next book, I want Corinn to be the Queen, so I need to get rid of Aliver. Hm. How can I do that?” So he gives us a few paragraphs of Meander’s thoughts, of Meander realizing that soon he will be seen as a mere nothing compared to his older brother Hanish. So he’ll kill Aliver and thus do something important. This seems obviously hacked in, not natural, and it throws you right out of the story. I felt these characters would not do these things, based on what I knew of them.

One final quibble: I wish Durham had not waited till nearly the end to explain why the Tunishnevre (the ancestors cursed by the ancient Akaran Tinhaden) needed to be transported from the Mein homeland to Acacia. I kept wondering why Hanish was going to so much trouble, when he could simply take Corinn to the ancestors, and this made me begin to suspect a plot hole. Durham should have explained the need to have them “awoken” in Acacia right up front.

Acacia is an important new fantasy novel, and I look forward to reading the next volume(s). Durham does not say how many books are to come, but there is obviously at least one more. I’m sorry if this review seems overly negative. I hope the author finds these criticisms helpful, if he reads them. Fantasy that speaks to the problems our world faces is rare. Acacia is a breath of fresh air, though it stumbles now and then. Acacia and Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) combine to give fantasy lovers great hope for the future.

Excellent New Fantasy Series
Though I am a fan of the fantasy genre, I also have to say that I’ve been disappointed by many fantasy novels. When I bought Acacia, I wanted to read some imaginative, new fantasy, but I was hesitant to simply pick up a random book off the shelf (since there is so much “bad” fantasy out there). So, I read some positive reviews of Acacia, and I decided to give it a try. Once I began reading it, I couldn’t put it down. The story is captivating and, in some instances, quite surprising. Important characters die (as in real life), and the line separating good from evil is quite blurred. The landscape of the novel is rich, unique, and diverse, and, like other hugely successful fantasies, this “Known World” exists unto itself and allows the readers to escape to an entirely new place. The human characters are very much like us–specifically including our fallibilities and errors in judgment–and this human element is part of what sets this novel apart. Most of the characters here evoke feelings of both intense sympathy and total condemnation. The “bad” people show glimpses of humanity, while the “good” people perform and/or condone terrible atrocities. These qualities make this novel the most human fantasy that I have had the pleasure of reading. If you enjoy a good story, you will love this book (regardless of whether you usually read fantasy or not). I look forward to the sequel and hope that it meets the high standards that were set by this amazing work.

A passable GRRM clone
The plot and the Akaran children themselves seem to be cut from the same cloth as the Stark children in GRRM’s Fire and Ice books. Let’s see…

Plot points:

-Dispossessed nobles rise again to unseat their oppressors (king’s children instead of Lord’s children). Each child was scattered to the four winds and has no idea if the other is alive.

-Ancient magic system has disappeared, but there is a quest to bring it back (Santooth instead of dragons) to help restore rightful rulers to power.

Characters:

Oliver = Rob Stark. Eldest son of a murdered noble/royal father who rises to challenge for the throne and is ***SPOILER*** killed.

Corinn = Sansa + some Danerys. Beautiful clueless elder daughter who starts out in the captivity of her father’s assassins and ends up rising to power and overthrowing her oppressors (that’s the Danerys part).

Mena - Arya, only hotter apparently. Natural sword wielding younger daughter who has resorted to violence to ease her pain.

Dariel - John Snow. Probably the most different character compared to the GRRM, but still… Instead of going to The Wall and meeting up with Wildlings and Others and ultimately becoming the leader of the watch, he goes to an island, meets up with and becomes the leader of pirates.

Of course, the details are different and the auther does a reasonable job of creating a unique world, magic systems, etc. I enjoyed it, but it was so similar to GRRM, I just couldn’t rank it above a 3.

Acacia: A wonderful start to a saga
I just finished reading Acacia and thought the book was great.

First off, would like to say that the cover of the hardcover is very eye catching and makes you want to read the book. It pictured the Acacia tree perfectly and really helped set the stage for the story.

The detail in the book is incredible and the author goes really in depth to the scenery. Sometimes it did make it seem to drag on, but it really helped put the story in perspective with so many different environments raging from the frozen north to the hot deserts in the South. The maps in the hardcover also help picture this mythical place and often turned back to look at it as the characters moved on.

The characters are also well done and my favorites were Alivar, Thaddeus, Darrel, and Val. The villains are also unique and the Mein appear as civilized barbarians, intent on vengeance agains the Acacians and set right a wrong done agaisnt their ancestors. Their are also affairs and plot twists that make the story very thrilling.

My only real complaint is that this book could easily have been stretched out to two, maybe even three books. The first part of the book was great and set the stage well, but then it jumps forward to their exile when their all grown up with little development of their characters as the children struggle to survive and adapt to their new lives. Flashbacks helps define them, but honestly would have liked to get to know each of the characters better; especially Alivar.

I also thought Alivar’s transformation from reluctant hero to savior was not really developed at all and would have liked to have seen him be very reclusive at first when Thatteus comes for him, then after seeing the Sanoth chooses to fulfill his destiny. There was no inner struggle from him and he just walked through the motions like what was expected of him. Of all the children, Darrel’s story was the least told and thought his should have been expanded and not his sister Mena.

The book is also not a quick read, and is so dense to read because of all the detail.

This is certainly a story would recommend and once u start, u will be immersed in the world of Acacia.

		List Price: $9,202.23		Publisher: CISCO SYSTEMS - ENTERPRISE Salesrank: 134933
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