James

Wilson redeemed himself for me with this book. As a psychological scientist, I always have been a bit rattled by his glib use of the word instinct, because it has never been an explanation of behavior or adaptive adjustment to the changing world. He clarified what he sees as the constant interplay of the gene enabling machinery of life in the adaptation of individuals and social groups. His explanation of epigenesis in adaption, the regultion of gene expression, put it all into proper comprehensible perspective. I will still avoid the word instinct, but he has correction outlined the limits of adaptation in the continuous interplay of coding gene expression during development and adjustment to the environment. For me, he made me see with great clarity that learning, differing as it does in different organisms and at different point in development and aging, is just another gene -expression enabled mechanism of adaptation. Inherited biological processes set limits on individual learning, as do diseases that are partly related to inhereted (or mutation produce) processes. This is a wonderful, lyrical at times, book of science that conveys profound insights into issues of existential and practical concern for all people.

No, it took a bit more than a weekend of walking in parks and doing chores.

I think people with a bit better than average knowledge of modern biology will get the most from this book. The reader, however, is superb, and does justice to Wilson's sometimes beautiful prose. This is a book to ponder in full again after some additional reflection.

The robot probationary citizen is a clever wrinkle on the standard robot sifi novel and the hard boiled detective novel. The main character's development as both a

The robot-loving wealthy patron with a very high IQ. The was a new approach to the

Excellent interpretation of the robot's personality.

No. I try to extend the pleasure of books I like by listening to other things between segments of a book. Books I do not like especially, I try to finish as quickly as possible.

This should represent only the first in a series of books about this robot detective's adventures. I will get them all!

I have not read the print edition, but the audio edition was a flawless performance that riveted my attention.

The entire performance and the story, for me at least, was an unbelievable experience. Ithe lived those years to which the main character traveled. I know the author did too. He made them live again for me. There was so much truth in the experiences visualized about about those years. And it was more than that. The smells were right, and the attitudes and incidents were as real as my own memories. I don't know if it will work for a young person who experiences the book today, but if such a young person wants to time travel to the years that shaped the characters of the vast demographic known as the baby boomers, this book is the ticket, all the ticket they will need.

There were many moments of high drama, some that brought tears to my eyes. I will not spoil any of these for the reader.

King is a great writer. He captures our dreams and disappointments and fears like no one else writing in our time. He hit this one out of the park, and the reader gave me a feeling that he was talking to me like an old friend.

This is a thriller that combines the AFPAK war with the Drug War and the right wing fear of immigration to produce a terrorism fantasy with as much blood as any psychopath could wish for. That being said it was a good ride, with appealing but flawed characters and real excitement at times. This is not the best Clancy novel, and I have read all of them published under his name alone, but I would spend my credits on it again. My only significant criticism is that there was occasional confusion that resulted from a very complex multi-setting plot and characters from three cultures mixed together and having similar sounding names. For an audio book with no visual redundancy to help the reader, I just got lost at times concerning the motivation of a character and his or her significance to the plot and relationship with other characters.