Little is knownand less has been publishedabout American submarine espionage during the Cold War. These submerged sentinels silently monitored the Soviet Union's harbors, shadowed its subs, watched its missile tests, eavesdropped on its conversations, and even retrieved top-secret debris from the bottom of the sea. In an engaging mix of first-rate journalism and historical narrative, Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew, and Annette Lawrence Drew describe what went on. Imagine an almost instantaneous communication system that would allow people and governments all over the world to send and receive messages about politics, war, illness, and family events. The government has tried and failed to control it, and its revolutionary nature is trumpeted loudly by its backers. The Internet? Nope, the humble telegraph fit this bill way back in the 1800s. The parallels between the now-ubiquitous Internet and the telegraph are amazing, offering insight into the ways new technologies can change the very fabric of society within a single generation. In The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage examines the history of the telegraph, beginning with a horrifically funny story of a mile-long line of monks holding a wire and getting simultaneous shocks in the interest of investigating electricity, and ending with the advent of the telephone. All the early "online" pioneers are here: Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, and a seemingly endless parade of code-makers, entrepreneurs, and spies who helped ensure the success of this communications revolution. Fans of Longitude will enjoy another story of the human side of dramatic technological developments, complete with personal rivalry, vicious competition, and agonizing failures. Therese Littleton In 1537, the Abbot Jervais Guillaume de Forrestier disappeared along with the treasures of an abbey. Over 300 years later, explorers at a neolithic site discovered the body of their expedition leader. He was found in a trench, bound to a chair. That's when Inspector MacDonald called on Sherlock Holmes. Arriving in the pleasant village of Little Stoke, Holmes learns there is more at stake than the murder of an aging academic. Two powerful families continue an age old dispute over the lands their ancestors once held. They each request that Holmes assist them in order to discover the whereabouts of the long-lost charters that granted their lands. Holmes soon finds himself surrounded by unique village personalities, strange nursery rhymes, mysterious ancient barrows, and the ruins of a mediaeval Abbey church. As he delves into the case with Watson by his side, he learns that the murder which drew him to Little Stoke was the final act in a play that has been running for over three centuries. |
Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novelthe magnificent story of four generations in the life of an American family. A wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest: to come to know his grandparents, now long dead. The unfolding drama of the story of the American West sets the tone for Stegner's masterpiece. Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novelthe magnificent story of four generations in the life of an American family. A wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest: to come to know his grandparents, now long dead. The unfolding drama of the story of the American West sets the tone for Stegner's masterpiece. Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed seriesfor more information, read our interview with Stephenson. John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. Presents an easy, visual approach to teaching QuickTime & MoviePlayer, using pictures to guide you through the software & show you what to do. Paper. One of the best general-purpose books on Quicktime for the Macintosh in the Amazon.com Books catalogue. (August '96) |