Product Description
This book provides an accessible introduction to the SPARK programming language.* Updated 'classic' that covers all of the new features of SPARK, including Object Oriented Programming. * The only book on the market that covers this important and robust programming language. * CD-ROM contains the main SPARK tools and additional manuals giving all the information needed to use SPARK in practice.Technology: The SPARK language is aimed at writing reliable software that combines simplicity and rigour within a practical framework.Because of this, many safety-critical, high integrity systems are developed using SPARK.User Level:IntermediateAudience:Software engineers, programmers, technical leaders, software managers.Engineering companies in fields such as avionics, railroads, medical instrumentation and automobiles.Academics giving MSc courses in Safety Critical Systems Engineering, System Safety Engineering, Software Engineering.Author Biography:John Barnes is a veteran of the computing industry.In 1977 he designed and implemented the RTL/2 programming language and was an original member of the ADA programming language design team.He was founder and MD of Alsys Ltd from 1985 to 1991.Currently self employed, John is the author of 'Programming in ADA' which has sold 150000 copies and been translated into 6 languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Book for Professionals
If you are in the business of creating serious software that is safety critical or security related then this book is essential reading, it is also an excellent guide if you have an interest in how such software is created. Focusing on how the SPARK language assures correctness throughout the construction of the software and how the supporting tools allow analysis of the resulting program, the book forms an essential reference work for users of the SPARK approach to developing software.

This book consists of three main parts plus an appendix.
The first part consists of an overview of why SPARK was created and the background to the language and tools.
Part two looks in detail at the SPARK language.
Part three considers the tools available; various code analysis techniques and design issues that can help in the development of high integrity software. Three small case studies are included, together with some examples of real projects where SPARK has been used in large scale industrial projects.
The Appendix covers the syntax of SPARK, how to use the CD-ROM and some notes on the continuing developments of the evolution of SPARK.
The included CD-ROM allows you to try out some of what the book teaches and includes limited versions of the SPARK Examiner toolset.

In this book John Barnes writes in a style similar to his other texts; this is rather like a guiding teacher leaning over your shoulder as you work at the computer, pointing out things to observe and illustrating with snippets of code or background information. It is a style that has been criticised by some, but I find it rather reassuring as you are guided along the path to understanding. The inclusion of a CD-ROM also allows you to understand by doing, and although the tool is limited in capability, it is possible to get a good flavour of the capabilities of its parent product.

This book replaces the previous SPARK book: "High Integrity Ada : The SPARK Approach". Barnes covers the revisions and enhancements of the SPARK language described in his original book, if you are an existing user of SPARK, you need this issue to stay up-to-date with the important revisions of the language and tools. This book tries to distance itself somewhat from Ada95, possibly because of the image that language has with less well-informed programmers, but since you need an Ada compiler to produce executables from SPARK programs it would be fair to point out that SPARK is firmly rooted in Ada95.

Creating high integrity software is a disciplined process, and the book is very much based in the practical application of SPARK in building high integrity software. The SPARK language is based solid mathematical foundations, but there is no detailed descriptions at this level, the book rightly points out that they are there and then moves on towards giving you the practical information you need to write SPARK programs. Mastering SPARK gives you unprecedented skills in the highly desirable field of producing high integrity software.

Thus spake the Master programmer:
"A well written program is its own heaven; a poorly written program is its own hell."
- - from The Tao of Programming ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is dedicated to the field identification of pigeons and doves, and it incorporates much recent information on the family. Pigeons and doves are a large family of birds occurring throughout the world. Many species are specialist frugivores, while others feed on seeds. Most are arboral and the tropical species in particular are often brightly coloured. The family includes gregarious migratory species, as well as shy, ground-dwelling forms such as the exotic crowned pigeons of New Guinea. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good content, poor editing, modest construction
"Pigeons and Doves" is the modern book on this family.There are important ups and downs to this book, as with any large monographic work.

The artwork is very good, even by bird book standards.Quality is consistent enough between the two illustrators.Eustace Barnes' illustrations range from mediocre in color and form to very good.Those of John Cox range from very good to excellent.The plates as a whole reach slightly above field guide caliber, and do not achieve the degree of detail seen in some monographic works.However, the detailed attention Cox pays to the scalation of the small legs and feet on his subjects is particularly impressive.Color of the plates does not show the richness seen on more impressively printed works.Plate layout is mostly very good, with a marked exception being that of plate 50, in which the Yellow-vented Green Pigeon, Treron seimundi, has the end of its beak cut off by the outer page edge.Still, the 76 plates alone are likely worth the publisher's price.

The content of the book is really something else.Considering the number of species needing coverage (both "recently" extinct and extant - over 300), quite a bit of information is given, sometimes with dilution so better-known species don't fill up half the book, and sometimes with holes due to lack of knowledge on certain species.Range maps are blobs on small images, and as already mentioned in another review, the sense in the size of some of the islands depicted makes no sense.This is especially true in the cases where a given species inhabits certain portions of small islands, yet the whole islands are shaded and occupy the space of a dot on an ocean map.

The citations included are helpful, but can be misleading.There is at least one mismatch in reference year between the text citation and the bibliography.At least one text-cited reference is simply absent from the bibliography.There are other editorial mistakes; some are unimportant, such as missing periods.Others are critical, such as the blunt cutoff in the "final" sentence of the "Status and Distribution" account for the extinct Bonin Wood Pigeon, Columba versicolor: "Haha-jima [island] further south was not ornithologically explored until after the arrival of alien mammals, but it is likely that C. versicolor [end account]" - what is really hypothesized about the fate of the Bonin Wood Pigeon in lieu of alien mammals, the casual reader may never know thanks to this lousy editorial error.

The book's construct is good save for the actual binding, which is weak for the thickness and weight of the contents inside the boards.The binding should have been woven, but instead is rather crudely glued.The size of the book is larger than field guide format, but for the quality of artwork and the amount of information per species, it should have been bigger, even if that would have meant upping the publisher's price.

This book will give Oxford a run for its money should the "Bird Families of the World" series ever produce a volume on the Columbidae.I think of "Pigeons and Doves" as the first major book in English on the family as a whole since Goodwin's last edition of his book back in 1983.Despite the errors, this book is well worth its space on the shelf of any quality bird book fan.

Simply Amazing
This is the best field guide on pigeons and doves that you can quite possibly buy. Any illustration that Eustace Barnes does is simply, amazing to be quite frank with you. The information is accurate, the range maps are well done and I wish that more guides would follow this format.

David Gibbs Delivers
An excellent reference to the Pigeons and Doves of the world.The color drawings and maps are unbelievable.I was able to identify a lot of birds after reading this book that I could not earlier.I give it two thumbs up.

greatbook for the family columbidae
I am an avid bird man.Love birds from foreign countries, and Pigeons and Doves are a special affection of mine.This book is detailed and complete.A great asset to my collection of bird books.
any one needing a great reference book on Pigeons and Doves would surely buy this book.

Worth every penny
This is an excellent book, giving full details on all the pigeon and doves species of the world. Excellent color plates also make the reader very familiar with the different types. I'd recommend this read to the budding aviculturist, old bird breeders, orinthologists, and even the average bird watcher. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Joshua Ali Quare wakes in 2019 at the age of 140 in a strong youthful body with no memory of his past, to find he is at the center of a vast and deadly conspiracy. The only clues to his identity are the records he has left--messages from the man he once was...

As Quare journeys through his past, he discovers he has been a key figure in the history of a turbulent, violent century--soldier, criminal, assassin, spy. A century filled with killing plagues and warring cults, ruthless corporations and dying nations. A century where treachery is often the only way to survive.

Now someone is looking for him. Someone from his past. And Quare must learn the terrifying secret of his history before it unleashed devastating consequences for the future of the human race.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

Don't waste your time
I'm amazed that Hollywood hasn't already made a movie out of this. Its gratuitous violence is right up their alley. Sort of "Clockwork Orange on Mars." Except most of the violence takes place on Earth. The only saving grace, I thought until near the end, was the possibility that the anti-hero only had mistakenly thought that he raped and hung all those sorority girls or made that poor mother-of-two eat his handgun before pulling the trigger. At least he felt guilty about it. Then he choked a doctor to death for the doc's boarding pass, and I realized, yup, he probably did the other things, too. So why did I finish it? I think to find out how bad it could really be. Well, it didn't get any worse. There was that. The writing was okay, almost compelling. But, in the end, I realized that I had wasted my time and money.

The Only Book I have Ever Thrown Away!
This book is so revolting that I had to throw it away.Yes, I read the entire thing, I kept hoping that the main characters would change.The entire book they went on a rampant spree of wanton violence... rape, torture, senseless killings.I read a lot of sci-fi and the premise of this book was a great one, I just wish that the author had chosen to tell his story differently.

An exploration of amorality
There are only two reasons to read this book, as far as I can see.

The first is for its look at future warfare (it typifies the truism "Militaries always prepare for the *last* war, not the *next* one").This is not the main theme of the work, but it is certainly present.

The second is for its exploration of the utterly amoral mindset, as exemplified in the main character.He is almost consistently horrible throughout the tale, and never redeemed... even in the end, when a unique opportunity to do good presents itself.

The book will be disturbing to very many readers, as it is full of rape and murder.However, I'm glad that I read it, if only to remind me of the lie implicit in the old quote "War is cruelty and you cannot refine it".The fact is that people need *not* become the monsters that awful circumstances might permit; this dark and awful look at one possible future should cause readers to remember that.Not recommended for sensitive readers.

More of the Meme Wars
I just finished KALEIDOSCOPE CENTURY by John Barnes.I found this to be a fascinating tale of future and alternate history.

Josh is a longtimer.That means that every sixteen years he gets sick for six months and drops ten years of aging.He also drops most of his recent memories.Josh has just woken up on Mars and is trying to piece together his past involvement with the KGB and the Committee.Josh lived through and participated in some very violent and wildly changing times.Earth gets abandoned to AIs that make backup copies in humans, limited time travel has been discovered and man is exploring space.Through Josh's 140 years of life we see a fascinating history unfold beginning in the 1960's to the not very distant future.

This is a fun book if you like history.Bush gets a second term and dies of mutAIDS (an airborne variety), Yeltsin conducts a failed coup on international television and plenty of other historical quirks.The only problem is that there is not much in the way of plot.The title only becomes significant at the very end.So what you have is a forty or fifty page story interspersed among an interesting history.

This is one in a series of books dealing with the Memes (the Ais).Others include Candle, Orbital Resonance, and The Sky So Big and Black.

A stunning and all-too-believable future
I want to add my words of praise for this novel.It's not for the faint of heart, but it's depiction of a war-torn twenty-first century in an alternate timeline (that begins deviating from ours around 1990) is one of the most well thought through and believable near futures in all of SF.That alone makes the book well worth reading, but in addition it is told from the point of view of a sociopath whose life symbolizes the larger catastrophes the world suffers through; this bleakly reinforces the book's brutally clear depiction of the banality of evil.Read this book, and then go out into the world and work for the changes that we need to keep it from becoming reality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Literary Impressionism Leaves Something to be Desired...
Conrad's mundane tale of the human condition is an example of literary impressionism at it's most infuriating peak. The author consciously avoids the statement of fact, only hinting at events that transpire. It requires agreat deal of focus to read and leaves one feeling unsatisfied, as nothingis told, outright, to the reader. It's also a very difficult book to betested on; the "tale within a tale" format makes it tough tocomprehend who is actually narrating. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Philadelphia : Presbyterian Board of PublicationPublication date: 1842Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Environmental Analysis As the study of the environment has become increasingly important, so the number of analytical techniques employed has grown dramatically. Environmental Analysis is a textbook which comprehensively surveys the most important analytical chemistry methods now used in this field. All the main areas of environmental analysis are covered. The first two chapters introduce the concepts necessary for a study of the environment. They enable the reader to gain an understanding of how pollutants may be transported in the environment, and the role of analytical chemistry in the monitoring of these pollutants. The remaining six chapters cover the analysis of water, solid and atmospheric samples. The special problems of ultra-trace analysis are also considered. A number of problems are included at the end of each chapter. Environmental Analysis is an invaluable text for all students of environmental analysis and environmental science. A basic knowledge of analytical techniques is assumed, but the author has employed a style which enables the book to be used by environmental scientists without a background in chemistry. Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning This series provides a uniquely comprehensive and integrated coverage of analytical chemistry, covering basic concepts, classical methods, instrumental techniques and applications. The learning objectives of each text are clearly identified and the student’s understanding of the material is constantly challenged by self assessment questions with reinforcing or remedial responses. The overall objective of Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning is to enable the student to select and apply appropriate methods and techniques to solve analytical problems, and to interpret the results obtained. ... Read more

Product Description
The Second Edition of this renowned text distills the vast amount of current research on structure, function, injury and repair into a single, logically organized source. More than two hundred chapters, (thirty-five new), present state-of-the-art knowledge on the pulmonary processes, the lung in health and disease, and normal and abnormal cell growth. Coverage also includes: lung components; morphology; pulmonary physiology and pathophysiology; structure and function; lung injury, defense, and repair; and much more. More than 1,500 high-quality micrographs, charts and photographs highlight important points throughout. ... Read more

Product Description
For the last thirty years, the survivors of the collapse has tried to exist Earthside. Space colonies like the Flying Duthman offer the last and best hope for the mother planet's future; the adolescents on board the Dutchman really are humanity's last hope, but knowing is a heavy burden - especially for Mel who has plans of her own. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

An amazing chapter of the war of the memes
John Barnes is an amazing writer.This book creates an amazing universe that never seems to end.

Review of Orbital Resonance by John Barnes
Life aboard a space station is explored in many modern works of science fiction and most of them have two elements in common.First, there is little or no privacy.Living in close quarters with one's family and colleagues makes for a public life.Secondly, life in such closed environments leads to rigid social organization and extreme pressure toward conformity.With the technology available under these conditions someone will inevitably monitor the actions of others.Especially in space stations meant for long-term or life long inhabitation, leaders act as "Big Brother", able to see and monitor every move of the inhabitants.

Orbital Resonance by John Barnes includes all these elements but in a deceivingly benign manner.A group of humans have been selected to begin a new life in a space station away from a dying Earth.The initial colonizers, realizing the children are their hope for survival, use genetic engineering, electronic monitoring, and psychological manipulation to socialize and control the actions of their children.Life on the "Flying Dutchmen" requires conformity.This conformity is enforced via socialization of the young such that conformity is second nature; genetic tinkering is used to ensure that this socialization works.The children growing up on the "Flying Dutchman" are truly denizens of space, seeing Earth as a distant, foreign environment.They are completely different and alienated from their parents.

Finding out her life has been closely scripted whereby seemingly free choices were really genetically and psychologically predetermined does little to deter the teenage protagonist, Melpomene.Unfortunately Barnes does not use this strong character to question the cleverly inconspicuous totalitarian nature of the society he creates.Instead, Melpomene goes about her daily routines and the eventual climax has more to do with the unbreechable generation gap than it does with the social control exercised by her parent's generation. The story itself is rather bland but is saved by the interesting characters Barnes develops.

It is odd the lack of attention Barnes devotes toward the worst invasions of human dignity perpetrated by his characters. The children are genetically engineered with certain abilities and are psychologically manipulated to respond certain ways to stimuli.Yet little discussion of the moral or social implications of genetic engineering ensues. Melpomene's father rationalizes the actions of his generation as being necessary for the survival of humans and the children of the "Flying Dutchmen", seeing himself as a benevolent guardian of their future.The normative questions opened by this rationalization remain unexplored. This makes Orbital Resonance less satisfying.

Book Review by C. Douglas Baker

Unusual coming-of-age novel
Melpomene ("Mel") Morris, born on the converted-asteroid space freighter Flying Dutchman, is thirteen and only six months from becoming a Full Adult. She's writing this book at the request of her psychologist as a way of introducing the ship's somewhat peculiar orbital society, of which she and her friends are the carefully planned carriers, to the people still surviving on a war- and disease-ravaged Earth. Individualism has been proven not to work, so their new social system is based strongly on cooperation and teamwork, and being an "Uncooperative" is a criminal offense. Things start to change when Theophilus joins their class -- a "groundhog" whose parents have joined the company that owns the ship -- and he thinks in a very divisive way that challenges their view of what's right, and he's a jerk besides. Mel, together with her brother and her new boyfriend, are destined for a different sort of role, though. Barnes lets Mel tell her story on her own terms, so the reader has to figure out and try to understand the differences between her world and ours, and he's pretty successful at it; I'm tempted to compare this book to a Heinlein juvenile, but it's not really like that. For one thing, it's not really written for adolescents. Pretty good anthropological science fiction.

The First of the "Meme Wars".
John Barnes assembles a vision of the future in the best tradition of true science fiction visionaries.

What happens if society decides to experiment on itself by altering the fundamental manner in which it raises its children, with the intent of producing vastly smarter and more responsible youngsters capable of entering the workforce at an earlier age with adult-like attitudes and skill sets that would make a modern college graduate green with envy?What happens to the adults upon whom the responsibility falls to raise the children in such a manner?

Whatever does happen, it had better work, because the Earth is failing rapidly as a result of ecological warfare on an unheard of scale, with the biosphere's state swinging first one way, then another.

Mankind needs new crews to man the great interplanetary transports that are hoped will be able to ship enough people off Earth and enough food back to keep everything from the brink of collapse, and the only way to get enough competent crew, crew who are willing to spend their lives in space and want to stay there, indeed, have every reason to stay there, are to raise them there, so that is their home from the beginning.

And how do you get a crew like that quicker than the 25 to 30 years a typical top-flight astronaut takes to develop?You take a new system of learning that completely revolutionizes the education process.The technical results are impressive, but the social results are interesting, to say the least.

The characters of the novel are the children of the experiment, and a few adults.For the most part, it is a coming of age story told anew, for it is a coming of age to adulthood far earlier than any children in history.It is told with bright-eyed clarity and absolute precision.The author tells of pre-adolescence from the point of view of those going through it.

The technology, its assumptions, and the society built by the expediency of need, and its assumptions, all drive the combination of assertions that create the knitted whole that is Orbital Resonance.

Those who are well-read enough to know of Alexi Panshin's book Rite of Passage (Nebula Award winner for best novel, 1969), will appreciate this book even more.

Orbital Resonance was a Nebula Award nominee for best novel, 1992.

Shallow Juvenile Story
I like well written stories written from a child's perspective._Ender's Game_ is a great example.

So why did I find this book such a major disappointment?

First, all the characters were names attached to concepts rather than people.You the concept called "Bully", "The Reformed Bully", the "Girl Who Is Growing Breasts", the "Shy But Smart Kid" and on and on.Those descriptions basically sum up the whole character development that you get for all the characters introduced in the book.

Second, the main cardboard character has empathy for people, and the writer shows by the character continually hugging and kissing everyone, but we don't get to see or hear why this character is empathetic, or what she's thinking, or why.I guess it's "enough" that if a character hugs every other character, this is a wonderful empathic character.

Third, the dialog is so shallow in most cases. Here is a typical example:

"I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry."

There was a hushed silence, then a the main character tittered a laugh.

"Gosh, um, I'm so embarrassed."
"It's all right.I like you."
"Wow, that's a relief, I really like the fact that you like me."
"Me too."

The characters hugged each other and wiped away a few tears.

This type of writing that spews from the page, on and on.A few instances of this, I can take, but if the entire book is devoted to scenes like this, it gets real boring and insulting real fast.

Fourth, the whole notion of the characters being "smart" doesn't come across well in the writing.All the writer does is spout a lot of titles of subjects that he's familiar with, such as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem (not very well), but the kids' knowledge of anything other than the subject titles or understanding doesn't seem to correlate with the buzzwords that the kids are spouting.

As a sharp contrast, in Card's _Ender's Game_, you really did feel that the characters did have a preternatural understanding of the world, and it showed in their actions and thoughts.

In _Orbital Resonance_, the kids spout off the buzzwords of the subjects their studying, but their actions are like kids in a kindergarden playground, with no maturity, with no insight to the reader as to why they are supposed to be smart or what they're thinking.This is just lazy writing.

Lastly, if you thought the main story was bad, the ending is the worst.The resolution to all the problems of society involves something so out of the ordinary that I sat with my jaw open.The characters to reaction to this was "oh, this makes sense - I'm happy with that."In reality, most children who are put into that situation would be wailing with abject grief and terror.I threw the book at the wall at this point since I was so mad at how unrealistic and how lazy the author became at the end.

Avoid this if you can. ... Read more

Product Description
Former astronaut Scott Blackstone's dream of opening outer space to visits from everyday people is under attack. His pilot program has been marred by a fatal accident, he's out of a job, and he's being sued for a billions dollars.And it's beginning to seem that the "accident" wasn't at all accidental.

Then the endless conflict between India and Pakistan heats up...and Pakistan explodes a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere, frying electronics on earth and in space, and putting the crew of the international Space Station at risk. With the Shuttle fleet grounded, only a secret skunkworks project knownto Scott and his old friends can save the space station's stranded crew.

The Return is a tale about the kind of space adventure that could happen today--and that will happen tomorrow. As told by Buzz Aldrin, who's been there...and who's already helped change the world.
Amazon.com Review
Old-school moonwalker Buzz Aldrin teams up again with former Hugo and Nebula Awards nominee John Barnes to pen another near-future SF tale focused on the fate of the U.S. space program. But as with the duo's previous effort, 1996's Encounter with Tiber, Aldrin's ideas can take center stage a little too conspicuously, which, regardless of your own views on the subject, doesn't always make for the best story. Part thriller, part infomercial for the Aldrin space manifesto, The Return fumbles only in its lack of subtlety: The book's protagonist, Scott Blackstone, is a technically accomplished and charismatic retired astronaut who runs a foundation called ShareSpace, whose mission is to send everyday citizens into outer space. And what do you know--in real life Aldrin is a technically accomplished and charismatic retired astronaut who runs a foundation called ShareSpace, whose mission is to send everyday citizens into outer space. (Talk about your expert author.)

Of course you read Aldrin not because you think he's the next Ben Bova but because he's a space-race winner, a bright man with inspiring ideas. And Barnes, who's already proven himself with topnotch titles like Mother of Storms, helps Aldrin get his point across admirably, spinning a tale that begins with ShareSpace's third Citizen Observer to accompany a space shuttle mission: a legendary, recently retired basketball hero known around the globe as simply "MJ." Disaster strikes, though, while the beloved MJ is airborne, and Blackstone soon finds himself relying on his lawyer ex-wife to come to ShareSpace's defense. Was the disaster an accident? Don't count on it. --Paul Hughes ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

It's good to speculate
The story, clearly fiction, partially quaint, provides insight into important aspects of the space industry and the thought processes needed to develop and prepare for future exploration.It a nice set-up story for the future settlement by humans on places like Mars.The technological story line in The Return gives the hint on how this is actually all going to happen within the nearer future (2019 was mentioned, even though, in my personal opinion, 2033 is more likely).It doesn't matter that MJ is a lightly veiled caricature of a well-known superstar, or that a country and a person are identified as evil.It is important that the issues are identified; family relationship are inextricably intertwined into every reality, private versus public funding of space tourism needs to be carried out, space law and liability issues do need to be addressed, public relations needs to be handled, the dreams of youngsters need to be re-established.This is a story whose technical tidbits become fun and, upon reflection, important for open discussion.

Entertaining and thought provoking
I picked up Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes' _The Return_ from a remainder table for $.99. It deserves a better fate than that!

Aldrin, a famed astronaut, and Barnes, an established writer, team up here for the second time to tell a story that is interesting, entertaining, important and timely. As I write this, NASA has announced yet another delay in getting our patched-up space shuttles flying again. While robotic spacecraft are sending back new discoveries from Saturn every day, our ability to send humans into space is languishing. Aldrin, of course, is a strong advocate for the human exploration of space, and _The Return_ is an enjoyable way to follow his thinking in the form of a reasonably dramatic, fun-to-read story. It's a quick read, it makes you think, and it has a happy ending. What more could you ask for?

Robert Adler, author of _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_, and _Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome_.

Average thriller involving the Space Question
"The Return', the second colaboration between John Barnes and Buzz Aldrin doesn't quite work as well as the first.This one is more of a thriller than a sci-fi book.In this book, a former astronaut named Scott Blackstone heads up a company trying to make space more accessable to everyone.He sends up a celebrity named Michael James, who is really a Jordan with a name change and a height change.James is killed by a freak accident, or so everyone thinks.Back on earth, Scott is sued by the family of the basketball star, and he ends up being defended by his ex-wife, who is the only one willing to take up his case.Meanwhile, his brother tries to finish a new type of rocket that doesn't need those detachable boosters.Soon, they all find themselves in the midst of an international plot, as a powerful nuclear bomb is set off in the atmosphere, and it is up to the Blackstones to rescue some astronauts stranded in the I.S.S(International Space Station).O.K read.

Makes me wish this was reality and not fiction!
This story from Buzz Aldrin reads almost like an alternate US space history - one in which the government allowed private business to take up the space tourist business. What makes this story a little more poignant is that the space shuttle Columbia places a significant role in the story. The pace keeps the reader flipping from page to page, and the storyline makes you want to believe that this type of R&D is really happening in the private sector. My only gripe is that Aldrin could have been a little more creative in creating one of the main civilian characters instead of simply using a caricature of Michael Jordan.

Techno- Mystery from an Alternate History.
Although somewhat light in detail of characters and plot, "The Return" is a fine read of what the U.S. Space Program COULD be leading to. The ideas and dreams of one of America's Finest show, in a well thought out, suspenseful tale of International intrigue that leads from Low Earth Orbit through the morass of the Media and the National legal system, to the intricate spiderweb of Worldwide interagency espionage and skullduggery!
An excellent means of entertaining oneself on a weekend away from it all, at home or on vacation, or sending self off to one's own Dreamland! ... Read more