Jesse

This is the 3rd book in the series and if you've made it this far then you are almost half way through the series. I've watched the Dune movie and the Sci-Fi Channel and neither do the books justice. Here we meet Paul's kids 9 yrs after their fathers death. They are being pulled in several directions as each faction wants them as their claim to power. We do see where they fight against it just to find out that it was more than anyone thought. No *SPOILERS* from here on.

The narrators do a great job of bring the story to life and following it completely.

Working in the tech industry after working for the government this book points out exactly what ‘could’ happen. Look at STUXNET that was designed to attack Iran and has been modified by other ‘governments’ to attack other countries. What stops someone or a group of people from doing the same thing? Everyone applauded the creation of these ‘targeted BOTS’ and then feared what would happen if they were turned against us. Look at the recent news (2013) of people leaving the WiFi on, on their phones and when they connect to an open WiFi points all their data can be stolen or worse. Why isn't all WiFi encrypted by default with no way to not have it encrypted? Why aren't WiFi access points requiring people to change the default admin passwords? Because if we did then when we have to create the next STUXNET we’d have to build it with the ability to get past the encryption. Then what happens when it’s turned back on us? This book makes us take a real hard look at this very real possibility. It also takes a look at why the government doesn't want this. Ever here of Patriot Act? It further goes into why corporations don’t want to do this. It will cost them too much in tech support for forgotten passwords. We've even seen CISCO setup WiFi where you plug it in and they remotely manage it. People said no, and here we are. Can a program with human help attain what the author talks about? Yes. Read the book and understand why this is true.

I read many books by the Dalai Lama and each one I find more and more fascinating. When I first started readying his books I thought he was a bit nuts. However, 10 years later I'm reading new books by him with others help and re-reading old ones. I'm finding that he's not nuts at all. In-fact if the world leaders would just listen to him then we wouldn't have half the wars going on or the undeclared wars going on! I find his advice here about getting over depression by getting out in the community to be very true. I tried this a year ago and it worked. Several people I've met tried this same solution and met with great success. One person told me without even know what the Dalai Lama had said. They were told by their physiologist to get out and mingle with people. They were able to get off all their meds. I found all the information useful and found it applicable in my life. I recommend this book and all the rest in the series.

I've been reading all the classics and Audible makes this very easy to do with unabridged editions of each. Along with Amazon syncing between the eBook and audio book. Which enables me to read the book when I can listen to it. This is my fourth Jane Austin book in a row. The others were either read or read/listened to. I see a lot of similarities between the events in this book to how some people live their lives today. I had a friend actually convinced the same way Ann was to not marry someone. This supports the theory that everything happens in cycles. Unlike some of authors book this time the 'beautiful' woman or main character doesn't marry the ugliest man described in the book. I won't spoil it for you. I will say that the narrator was perfect for this story. I have four more books of Jane's to go before I've gotten through them all. I find it enjoyable learning about how people saw that era of time and how some people want to go back to it. It's too bad that the author is no longer with us because she could teach a lot to the screen writers in Hollywood and a lot of the new authors righting books. These new writers don't know how to balance a book properly.

This is three of her books in one and will save you some dough.

I know people that follow Pema Chodron’s book like some people follow the bible. However, I don’t think they've ever heard her talk. In the first book (talk) she talks about recent to the events before the events of this talk like weeks before she talks about losing her mind with her granddaughter. She talks about how monks that are suppose to be these people in complete harmony with the world around them really aren't. She talks about learning to deal with this and why its hard even for the Buddhist masters. In the second book she talks about compassion for everyone. She goes into depth concerning tonglen meditation. Which I've tried and it’s very hard at first. It’s very powerful once you get the hang of it. It’s about changing our relationship with pain and pleasure. Why run from pain? Why embrace pleasure? What is the real difference? I learned that the difference between pain and pleasure is perception. And it’s not easy to see it. I learned in the third book that doing tonglen meditation is very helpful.

I've read many books on ‘Area 51’ and I've heard many stories. Most want to say that it’s completely about aliens and the cover up. However, we must look at the ‘War of Worlds’ radio broadcast that sent the whole East Coast of the US into a panic. We learned that people are susceptible to misinterpretation of facts. The Government realized that people can be completely misled by the same thing. We call it a UFO, so you ignore that ‘Area 51’ is not the real area of interest. Realize that the Government controls an area the size of the state of Connecticut and we’re only looking at 200 acres. What about the Department of Energy that controls the rest of it? To me ‘Area 51’ is the squirrel we’re to watch instead of the person sneaking up on us. Here we learn what people have said for years and that is a lot of work was done in ‘Area 51’. However, the real interesting stuff was going on around it. This book touches on it and I want to know more. Unfortunately, in my lifetime this will probably not happen. I give the author credit for bringing all the information forward she did. I would like to see someone else for the other ‘50 Areas’ around it.

I got this book after listening to an episode of ‘Twit’ years ago and I just got around to listening to it. Here we see the ‘Gods’ we worship as they would be if we took them off their pedestals and looked at them as should look at them. I won’t spoil anything however I do like it when they come across one of them hitchhiking across a country. We meet an ordinary man that learns there is nothing ordinary about the world around us. We see ‘Gods’ running businesses and not doing well. We also see them being taken in a con-job and doing con-jobs. We even see them trying to be ‘the’ God they were in the past. Here Gaiman did a wonderful job bringing together all of the various cultures and explaining all the Gods with surprising accuracy and realism. I don’t want to spoil anything other than to say you need to read this book and realize all is not as it seems. I wouldn't research this book until you've finished it because too many people will ruin it for you.

This is the last book currently released in this series. I was hoping to see more people waking up and doing more. We see the main character that caused so many problems do something the people outlawed the church to do in all countries. We see another do everything he can to grow past people’s perceptions of them. We see the ‘Mother of Dragons’ lose her way. Does she find it? We have to wait for 2014 to find out. We also see many people no seeing the truth before them. They also try to enforce their views and lifestyles on others. We also see the arrogance of kings didn't end with the death of the last king before Robert. Someone once said if you raise someone without a touch of reality you end up with a tyrant. Will this be true here? The stage is set for the next round in the only game to play, ‘The Game of Thrones.’ I would like the narrator to back to the original voices they used for the characters for the first three books. It's hard to listen a whores' voice come from a child.

I've listened to all the books back to back and yes, I have lots of time to listen. As long as my work is done and no one is complaining I can listen to what I want. In this installment of the saga the Narrator changed all the voices around. Arya sounds like the whores used to sound and John has a woman's voice now. It doesn't change in the next book either. For three books the Narrator was consistent. I wonder what happened. With this aside the story line continues to grow and still no back story, so you have to had read in order to know what happened. We see the characters grow and the ones that think they're on top of the world find themselves being pulled down by all the hands they stepped on, on their way up. We see the loyal turn on the ones that trusted them the most. We see those that are despised throughout the whole series doing the most to keep things together, yet no see's past their past. For those who are watching the HBO season's on TV you will see parts of this book in season one and two. I like the story line and in the next book which I've already started the author is tying up the story lines and pulling them all together.

I've read the series one book after another and now I'm into the fourth book. In this book the author once more picks up right where he left off without missing a beat. We learn more of how the 'Game of Thrones' is played. We learn that people who think they're good at the game end up getting bested. We also see those who should be out of the game come back in and score a winning victory even though it took the losers a while to see it for what it was. During the time I was reading this book I watched the HBO TV series season one. They did a hatchet job combining the first two books into one season. They've even managed to bring part of the third book into it. I'm not going to continue to watch the series and I will finish the books. The books are better by far and their long I know, yet it's worth it.

Here the author picked right up where he left off with the previous story. I'm glad there was no back story at the beginning of the book. That is annoying when authors do that. At no point in the storyline has there been any reference back to the first book. Here we see more of the storyline unfold. For those that have watched the HBO version you'll find the characters much more indepthly covered and their relations to each other. We also get a look at the enemy that has as of yet unseen starting to reveal itself. I must say that George R. R. Martin writes like Melanie Rawn used to right and better than her. Until his series she was my favorite author from this genre. The Narrator is good and does many voice impersonation to keep the reader interested and hasn't confused one used for one character be used for another which commonly happens. I will begin the next book because the series is so good. Normally I don't like to start a series until it's complete because well people move on from this world or simply lose interest and I don't like to be left hanging with a story line.