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Apr 03, 2008
Day of the Cheetah by SS4Vegeta007
Dale Brown writes another good aviation thriller in the same universe as 'Flight of the Old Dog'. Utilizing his main hero, Colonel Patrick McLanahan, he sets off on his novel of espionage and intrigue as the United States builds and test the XF-34. A futuristic stealth fighter with a revolutionary thought control system giving the XF-34 unmatched ability in the sky. Only to have it stolen by a Russian spy. (Reminiscent of a reverse version of 'Firefox'). The twist is the Colonel using the F-15 Advanced Technology Demonstrator (in the 'real' world it is the F-15 MTD) to either recapture or destroy the XF-34. The F-15 ATD (code named the Cheetah)is the aircraft which the Dreamstar is supposed to replace. The Cheetah, using multi function screens,voice controlled systems and advanced vectored thrust and canard systems makes the final battle a great one.
If the book has a flaw..its the character interactions which I feel is not life-like. Overall its a good book with great action. Those who like aviation and drama should find this book worth reading.
Apr 05, 2010
The best Introduction to Analysis book I never read!
If you need help in decyphering numbers like..."Eleventeen" and "Twenty something"..... If you ever wondered why when you draw 4 right 90 deg angles you always end up where you started at....If you wondered why 4+X-Y=87 when you need at least one less letter since you cant add letters to numbers in the first place and expect it to make any sense...Or why 88 mph is the only speed that one can time travel at.....or perhaps a easy 3 step algorithm to understand women is what you need... This book could be for you. Or not since the book wasnt for me it was for a cousin of mine in school so I have no idea what is in it. Frankly if there was ANY book that had a answer to women..I would of bought 10 of them and a audio book too.
Seriously he says that its a great text book for mapping of the space between one system or space to another. Basicly picture a drawing of five bridges and the task is for you to draw a route getting from point A to point B by only crossing each bridge once. That is the most simplistic analogy that I can come up with. *L* A must read for advanced mathmatics and system mapping.
Dec 22, 2009
One of the best biographies of Bettie Page.
This happens to be one of the greatest biographies on Bettie Page out there. It also is one of the first with the investigative team that first found her after her decades in seclusion. Written by Karen Essex and James Swanson, it delves into the birth and life of a legend who spearheaded a cultural shift from the oppressive mindset of America pre WWII to the cultural revolution that soon followed. It has a forward from Bettie Page herself in which she doesnt understand the big deal over her and the fact that she thinks of herself as "Never being the girl next door". Yet portraying both the "Naughty" and the "Nice" in every one of her pictures.
The book goes thru the life of Bettie as a teen in Tennessee, her starting career as a model, to New York and the introduction of her legendary bangs, thru the Irving Klaw era to the goverments assault on Klaw and Bettie to her end of modeling and her self-imposed exile....right up till 1996 when she first came out again to relate what happened in those missing decades. It has a fantastic collection of pictures of Bettie from her as a child ...to all of her most famous photographers as Bunny Yeager and Irving Klaw...and all of her most famous magazine and stage appearances...straight thru to the last poses to modern day memorabilia and effects on society.
If there is a downside to the book, it is that it doesnt go into depth about what happened in the 70's to the 90's. Her several divorces were writen in almost as a afterthought. Newer bios do better on this subject but are lacking in the overall quality that this book has. It also doesnt have what is now a essential for any Bettie Page book.....the very last pictures of her modeling, taken by Ellsworth Boyd in late 1957 whom they just met on the beach when she showed interest in his skin diving/fishing. These were taken at the beach with her posing with a scuba mask and a fishing trident.
That being said...this is one of the best autobios there. It is a must for Bettie Page fans and those who love pin-ups.