A message for avid computer users from the author of The Cuckoo's Egg (1989): Get a life. Stoll, a 15-year veteran of the electronic information age, appears to have reached a stage of burnout that most computer junkies pray they will never see, and the result is a cranky meditation on how better to spend one's time. A strong plot was the key to the author's bestselling first book (about a computer spy ring), but here we find only ramblings from someone who sounds half the time like a technical writer and half the time like a hip graduate student with a thesis statement to prove. Stoll wastes an inordinate number of pages driving home the point that it's nicer to experience a sensation than it is to view a representation of it on your monitor. Advised in tones that suggest a revelation that exploring a cave, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and stargazing are more satisfying than punching in commands at the keyboard, readers may well wonder what on earth makes the author think them so misguided. There's no pleasing Stoll as he surveys cyberspace. For example, he slams most Usenet bulletin-board messages as futile, then complains that the messages are not catalogued. He has had it with e-mail, he announces—well, maybe it has something to do with his holding down six different online accounts. Stoll does provide some jollier moments, mostly in the form of truly wacky footnotes (in which we learn things like how to nail Jell-O to the wall) and in all-too-brief passages that herald back to his salad days of besting evil computer hackers. A staunch defender of library books and card catalogs, Stoll takes noble ideas and swamps them in a morass of overzealous grouching. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-41993-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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