If you want to use the Windows version of PGP, this is not the book for you.

Simon Garfinkel's PGP is certainly informative and is written in light, breezy language that makes it easy reading for even the least technical. But, sadly, this book is so out of date as to be entirely useless with regard to actually using PGP today.

Most of the tunes are tasty, a generous mix of old chestnuts and new tunes. Everything but the Girl's "25TH December" is a slow and poignant beauty; Donna Lewis' "Christmas Lights" is a synchopated wonder, reminiscent of her now outdated "Always and Forever". The talented Tori Amos breathes new life into the bloated corpse of "The Little Drummer Boy".

If you're feeling a little wacky this Christmas, give it a try. If nothing else, you'll at least have a bright, shiny new coaster.

The story concerns Brian Miller, an archaeologist who has "graduated and has a degree and all", but makes a practice of slipping small artifacts in his shirt pockets, instead of leaving them in situ and cataloging them properly. Miller then inexplicably leaves the dig site to go home to New Orleans and visit with his chums, taking the ankh and some other purloined items with him.

Miller's chums, Lewis, whose lifestyle "allowed him to enjoy an unbelievable social life and the love of many women", and quiet Eric, are an odd pair who hurl hateful insults at one another and then claim to be only joking.

Before long, the magical, stolen objects start wreaking havoc before releasing the demon Lilith into our universe and the streets of New Orleans, forcing the three pals to join together and battle it out with the forces of evil.

The book is full of unintentional screamers and horrible dialog. Taylor, 23 when he wrote the book, writes like a Gen Xer speaks, without concern for the rules of grammar or punctuation. The plot is simplistic and full of filler; Taylor wants to write about the funny things he and his buddies used to say to each other more than he wants to tell a supernatural tale.

In one bewildering scene, an Algerian worker from the archaeological dig site, seeking revenge both for being fired and for the theft of the ankh, follows Miller onto the New Orleans-bound plane with an attaché-case full of explosives. Rather than detonate the bomb while airborne, which would at least kill Miller, the fellow waits until the plane lands, leaves the case behind, then tries to escape the blast by running and shoving people out of the way.

Moments later, after the nearly-empty plane has exploded, maintenance workers (MAINTENANCE WORKERS - investigating an airplane explosion?) discover the remains of a passenger seated on the plane with pieces of the detonator all over him. Neat trick, considering he would have been incinerated and it would have taken FAA investigators weeks to piece it together. Oh, yeah. He also had just escaped the plane by running and shoving people out of the way.

Upon release from her interdimensional prison, the demon-mother Lilith heads straight for Bourbon Street, where she lives it up with a passel o' Pina Coladas (she doesn't have to pay - she just hypnotizes the bartender) at a strip club, then sets up shop in an adult entertainment center. Ahem.

During the course of the story, one of the intrepid heros changes into a bright orange dragon, Brian Miller crumbles to dust and a kindly old professor keels over in a death scene so funny you'll have to read it twice to make sure it's as bad as you think it is.

There's a cyborg, too, but it makes my head hurt just to think about it.

On the one hand, I applaud Robert S. Taylor for having the fortitude to sit down and actually write 300 or so pages of fiction. That takes motivation and integrity. But to publish it as is, without bothering to edit, is both presumptious and deceptive. At least when one buys a professionally published novel, one has the expectation that the book will have been read by more than the author's immediate family and that someone might have tried to make the book readable. With the emerging world of self-publishing, we have no such safeguards.

"Artifacts" is a stinker of the first degree.

I found it in Sharyn McCrumb's "Sick of Shadows", a novel of characters in which the mystery is incidental. Each character is original, fun and lively, with quirks that may have seemed quirkier years ago when this book was written, but now seem as normal as any American family. The main character is Elizabeth McPherson, recent college graduate, who goes on to figure in many more of McCrumb's novels (McCrumb seems to have fallen in love with her Appalachian cycle, so Ms. McPherson's fate is uncertain, at best).

Her mad cousin, Eileen, is about to be married and has invited Elizabeth to be a bridesmaid. Cousin Geoffrey is a Shakespeare-spouting layabout, Cousin Alban is a history buff who built a castle on his property and Charles is a hippie physicist. McCrumb gives Elizabeth a wry matter-of-fact delivery that occasionally made me laugh out loud, and her favorite device is revealing her impressions of the family in frequent letters to her brother, Bill, who is unable to attend the wedding. The murder, when it finally happens, is shocking and sad, yet McCrumb doesn't allow it to weigh the book down with sorrow.

All in all, "Sick of Shadows" was just what I needed to get me through a miserable day. Of course, I was cheating, as I had read it years ago and was only now rereading it, so I knew it would be perfect, but that shouldn't steer you away from this book or the series. I plan to reread them all.

James Blaylock seems to suffer from the worst kind of Chris Columbus fantasy imaginings. Plot slowing down? Throw in a big, anachronistic machine! Don't waste time with character development, just dress 'em up and make 'em talk funny. That'll do it.

Overall, Blaylock seems unable to rise above mediocrity.

Although this slim volume isn't packaged as a mystery, it's hard to write about it without it seeming mysterious, as much of the action is propelled by questions waiting to be answered: "Who are these fellows?", "Why do they behave so oddly?", "If they're brothers, why are they so very different?" There are answers and they are mysterious, but that's not all this book is about.

What is it about, you ask? Well, it's about identity. It's about the little vortex of oddness that goes by the name "New Orleans". It's about tourism, gentrification, petty theft and Mardi Gras. It's about accepting who you are, even if who you are isn't what you expected.

The book is described here as being in the spirit of "A Confederacy of Dunces", an assessment with which I agree, as both are fun and tragic comedic tales of fish out of water, trying to survive in a world that makes no sense.

"19 1/2 Revelations" opens with Moto arriving in New Orleans and applying for a job at the public library (all the while ruminating on sloths), pursued by his brother Abe. Both are in the city looking for the truth about "the clipping", a newspaper article concerning UFOs and a discarded baby. Hijinx ensue and the two are soon joined by Roberto, a local businessman who drives them around town.

Fox's writing is light and breezy, making this an easy read and suiting the tale beautifully. It's obvious he's a resident by the locations he chooses and by the fact that, as in "Funky Butt Blues", he uses his fiction to grouse about local eyesores, such as the casino and the SuperDome. The only thing I didn't like was the character Roberto, who seemed a little too "Deus ex Machina" for my tastes, always arriving just in time to feed the brothers, drive them around, fix their car, etc. But it's a small complaint and a forgivable one.

Scott Crane is a man who loses. As a child, he lost an eye. As a young man, he lost his soul in a card game. As an adult, is wife dies and he loses his will to survive. Until he is drawn to Las Vegas, where the last Fisher King died, and learns his is one of four Jacks vying for the right to assume the King's place.

It sounds wacky and ridiculous and I'm sure it would fall flat in any hands but those of Tim Powers. But Powers is a master of Urban Magic, at finding mystery in the oridinary and in drawing conclusions from history that might only be inferred by a madman. But once he has cast his eye on a subject and explained it to us, it all makes sense. We wonder why we never saw it before.

In typical fashion, Powers has selected Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a sort of working illustration of the story, writing elements that make you stop and think "Oh, ho! Eliot was in on it, too!". Powers uses the poem to good effect, as he has with the Romantic poets in "The Stress of Her Regard" and other works.

I don't get excited about many books or many authors, but this is one of the best. Powers is an amazing talent, always satisfying, always fresh and always jaw-droppingly unique.

The contents were a nice capture of shadow and light, a somber eye cast on what could have been alarming or lurid and making it instead something lovely. Certainly there was plenty here to titillate rather than elevate, but that's no reason to throw out the entire batch.

And a stinker is what we have with Saberhagen's "Dracula Tapes". Purportedly the transcript of a tape left in the vehicle of one of Mina Harker's descendants, the tapes represent the redoubtable Count's attempt at setting the record straight. Is he a decent fellow, maligned in Stoker's compilation of journal entries and letters? Or is he a liar, out to gain sympathy by weaving a tale of persecution?

Certainly, it behooves the reader to have read "An Old Friend of the Family", the first in Saberhagen's Dracula appropriations, in which the old bat arrives in Chicago to assist another set of Mina's descendants with some unpleasantness. This novel gives the reader the background requirted to accept Vlad as a good guy.

Saberhagen tries valiantly to clear Dracula's name in this book by sticking faithfully to the text of the original and refuting individual points. But the effect is unsettling and unbelievable; one has the impression that the vampire is making this all up on the spot and sounds ridiculous doing so. For example, who could possibly believe Dracula using a wolf's head as a battering ram to smash open Lucy's window?

The writing is stilted and awkward (but also was Stoker's, so who's to say Saberhagen didn't write this way on purpose?) and at its best when Drac is going head to head with the weird Van Helsing, who, in this version, is an incompetent old fool. It's obvious that Saberhagen wrote the screenplay and novelization of the Coppola film version, because here Dracula speaks in a strange, Gary Oldmanesque cadence that looks as odd as the film sounded.

Much of the book is merely transcripts of Stoker's original, serving to refresh the reader's memory while giving the narrator ammunition to rebut.

This is a fun novel, written, it seems, as an exercise, to see whether it could be done. It's not the best ever written, nor is it the best of the author's vampire series, but it will pass a pleasant hour or two and not make you race to the original for purification.

It seems to me that, if you plan to write a book exploding the myths of popular history, you might want to start out by establishing your credentials to enhance believability instead of shooting yourself in the foot.

Most of the entries in this book are just a few pages, not enough to establish truth or lack thereof, but enough to provide lots of white space to enhance the thickness of the tome without bogging the reader down with content. To make matters worse, Schenkman writes in the worst Scholastic Book Club patronizing tone, which serves to put off the intelligent reader.

Unless you've tapped out all other sources, I wouldn't bother with this book.

This book, after just a few pages in, seems more like a joke on the reader than a novel. It almost reads like a Burroughs opium nightmare about a private eye, or a Gertrude Stein poem about one. There is no plot and even a nonlinear thinker will become lost amid the electron-induced battling plotlines.

I could be wrong, I hope I am, but I have a feeling that the people who loved this book and gave it excellent reviews were just not up to the task of admitting it didn't make much sense.

Not an essay passes without Heimel wanting to shoot or stab someone because they don't agree with her or haven't acheived the same level of spiritual enlightenment. Women who want boyfriends? Shoot 'em. Sexist men? Shoot 'em. Women who are getting sex because they aren't feminists? Shoot 'em. Heimel's world is a bloodbath, with her unhumorous hand on the trigger.

I don't have a problem with women who write that men are jerks, since most of us are. But I can't advocate gunning us down because we're insensitive, not even in jest. When you pick up a book by a celebrated humorist, you expect to find some clever observations and maybe a few unpopular ideas. But this was just a barrage of meanness worthy of Sam Kinnison or Andrew Dice Clay.

Mage accidentally comes into the possession of a "focus", a magical item that causes happy accidents to occur in favor of the user. Regrettably, it also causes the villain, the wealthy wizard, Tamenaga, to hunt the user down and kill him or her (as he had the previous owner). This causes Mage enough consternation that he decides to use the focus to get revenge while being hunted by demons from Japanese mythology.

Sadly, the synopsis is more exciting than the book itself. Dedman's writing skills are at first-year creative writing student levels and this is a tale that requires a defter hand, a better sense of humor and a wider imagination.

This is an interesting read and can be entertaining as long as your expectations are low.

A black mark on this otherwise fine novel is the odd decision to have Dave go undercover in the home of Mobster Tony Cardo, a razor-edged freak of a man living on the outlines of his own criminal organization. Personally, if I were a crook, I'd never accept an ex-cop into my home, but maybe that's just me - the fact is that tony does and that's how this rollicking book gets going.

It's not important that there's any more plot than that - in a Burkle novel, the setting is the most important element. As always, Burke paints pictures and only incidentally places characters and action within them, with the exception of Dave Robicheaux himself. I have always admired Dave - he is morally ambiguous and righteously angry, which causes him to behave in ways that are almost as freakish as Tony Cardo's ways. An example is dave's heroism at the climax of this novel - it's both awe-inspiring and breathtaking, but it's probably not what I wold have done in the same situation.

Burke is an amazing writer and a good story-teller. He's not a bad painter, either.

Bucky the psychotic cat is a study in perverse sensibility. Satchel, the long-suffering dog, is a psychic sponge, alternately sucking the rationale of Rob (the pair's "owner") or Bucky, as the moment strikes.

Frankly, just looking at the way Conley draws Bucky & Satchel, with pot bellies and little round feet, makes me laugh; it dosn't hurt that Conley's sense of humor is also as sharp as Bucky's single fang.

This is the story of Zack Hutton, a talented writer who sinks into alcoholism and insecurity after he destroys his marriage by womanizing. It's the story of a man who hits rock bottom and redeems himself. For a goofy comedy, it's pretty poignant.

The film is buoyed by amazing supporting performances by Vincent Gardenia as a wise bartender, Joel Brooks as best friend and attorney Jake and Dee Dee Rescher as jakes wife, Bernice.

Invariably, people point to the scene "that glows in the dark" as a reason to watch this movie, but I think that famous scene is easilyt the silliest and most forgettable. Funnier scenes abound and, if you pay attention, the movie is peppered with clever, underplayed dialog.

This is one of my favorite movies. I hope you enjoy it, too.

As a long-time resident of San Francisco, I read Dan Leone's "Cheap Eats" column regularly, so it was natural for me to want the compilation book. Sadly, I discovered that what works well in a weekly column kind of fills you up quickly in larger doses.

When you can compare columns and watch Dan progess over a period of time, it becomes obvious what a one-trick pony he is. He's like a six year old child who's just learned a new bad word and delights in repeating it over and over to shock dinner guests. So many of his columns are a study in scatology, that it makes one wonder how he eats at all with visions of body wastes dancing in his head.

Dan Leone can be funny, in Ferrelly Brothers kind of way, and many of his columns make for amusing reading. But a little of him goes a long, long way.

This is my introduction to Elliott Smith so I have no background in his earlier, less-lush work, and maybe I'm the better for it. ... since I have no basis of comparison, I'm prefectly free to get lost in the spider web of sound spun on "Figure 8". And, perhaps because I've recently had my heart broken, all the lyrics make sense instead of being maudlin or overwrought. I will, of course, reexamine this in a year or so when I feel better, but I have a feeling that this record will stand the test of time.

Standout tracks are the opener, "Son of Sam", a deceptively-jaunty song that sounds almost like Klaatu at a high-school carnival. "Everything Reminds me of Her" and "Everything Means Nothing to Me" are fraternal twins, each with a different sound, but inseperable - they should be played hand in hand in perpetuity. "Somebody that I used to Know" is heartbreakingly simple, deceptively upbeat and captures perfectly the sound of a man on the edge of regaining himself. The rest of the album is wonderful, but these are the tracks that pierced me.

I am grateful to the friend who introduced me to Elliott Smith and I can only hope that, if you buy "Figure 8" after reading this review, you will be grateful, too.

Ho-hum. I can't tell you how disappointed I am. Perhaps it's just the hyperbolic whiplash inherent in overexpectation. Perhaps it's that David Gray writes lyrically mediocre songs then records them with undistinguished musical backing. Perhaps it's his grating voice, which works well on a single song, but annoys on an entire CD.

I won't dispute the hundreds of other reviewers here and elsewhere who loved this album unquestionably. I'll just assume that I'm missing something and move on.

But you have to decide why you are reading this book. Is it to gain factual information regarding the underground life of messengers? I propose not. Is it to experience a realistic trip through cyberspace? I hope not. Or is it to take a breathtaking journey through the fictional San Francisco in Joe Quirk's mind? If that's your goal, then you will not be disappointed.

Upon reading the first three pages of "The Ultimate Rush", I was feeling likeI had been punched in the stomach. I was breathless, tense and shaking, as though I had shared Chet Griffin's ride to the Mission from on high. I have not read anything that gripping or funny since the first three pages of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash".

Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, Quirk cannot maintain the adrenaline rush of his opening chapter (I say fortunately, because I would not have survived the novel at that opening pace), but he does settle into a rather nice little thriller, one that is chilling, amusing and exciting and just plain fun. I kept reading deep into the night, hoping to regain that cherry high of the opening. I wasn't disappointed.

Quirk's characters are fully realized and alive, albeit from a world most of us will never visit. His girlfriend, Ho, skategrrrrrl supreme and punk rocking lesbian, is fabulous and his next door neighbor, a wheelchair-bound hacker, is funny and resourceful.

As has been mentioned before, the plot is ludicrous: Chet is hired to transport illegal data via skates down San Francisco's dangerous hills. The crooks to whom he delivers eventually turn on and attempt to murder him. He decides to turn the tables by turning rival gangs and crooked cops on one another in an amazing climactic battle. That's all.

If you like witty, page-turning, heartstopping novels, give this one a try. You probably won't be disappointed.

"Judas Kiss" is the story of four criminal
stereotypes and a kidnaping gone wrong. Spin City's Carla Gugino
plays Coco Chavez, in a role apparently written for someone of Latin
descent. Simon Baker is Junior Armstrong. Together, they play the
stereotype of the sex-starved criminal couple who talk in cutesy
voices. I know this type started with Bonnie & Clyde, but I blame
Quentin Tarantino for popularizing it with "Natural Born
Killers" and "Pulp Fiction". Ally McBeal's Gil Bellows
plays Lizard Browning (yep, you read that right), cool, collected yoga
practitioner and master criminal. The quartet are rounded by Ruben
Rubenbauer, the toughest dumb guy you'll ever meet, who places a gun
to his head and fires, just to prove that he's got nerves enough to be
included in the gang.

Together, these cardboard cutouts kidnap the
head of a computer company. During the operation, an innocent woman
spies Coco; not wishing to be identifed, Coco shoots her. Too bad she
turns out to be the wife of Hal Holbrook's Senator Rupert
Hornbeck.

Enter Rickman and Thompson, shuffling through this
charming embarrassment with aplomb. Rickman is the only honest cop on
the force, just trying to do his job. Thompson works for the FBI and
is trying to recover the kidnaped millionaire. Each of them wears the
honey-dripping, mushmouthed Texan accent of an Englishman trying to
portray an American, making them damned comical at times.

Notable
supporting roles are held by Joey Slotnick, famous, apparently, for
being Joey Slotnick, and Roscoe Lee Browne, the hardest-working black
actor in America (he's done a lot of great stuff, but if you missed
him as Jedediah Nightlinger in "The Cowboys", you should go
rent it right now).

The New Orleans location doesn't really stand
out here, as it does in films like "The Big Easy" or
"Hard Target", but I'm thankful that the director didn't set
every other scene on Bourbon Street, and that there were no chase
scenes hampered by Mardi Gras parades - two of the biggest New Orleans
cliches out there. He did, however, manage to utilize another -
political and police corruption. Whoopie. There's nothing new under
the sun, eh?

"Judas Kiss" is an interesting and
entertaining film, but not a particularly masterful one. Certainly
worth watching, but not necessarily worth seeking out.

Just so you'll know where I'm coming from, let me tell you up front that I'm not an anime fanboy. Not because I don't like it - "Ninja Scroll" is the first full-length animated Japanese film I've seen. So this review will be from the point of view of a neophyte.

The opening of this film is marked by extremely choppy storytelling. Three separate, apparently unrelated scenes draw us into the movie, creating mystery and suspense. What's the mysterious plague? Who are the dark riders? Well, it will eventually come clear, but in a murky sort of way.

As a neophyte, I was shocked by two things - first, the seemingly low-quality animation, which I've been told is a hallmark of Japanese film, and second, the explicit sexual content. One reviewer here has suggested that one should not allow a child younger than 13 to see this film. I don't think I'm a prude, but I would still raise that age to 17. The rape and torture scenes are somewhat excruciating, and there is one scene with a serpent that is downright horrifying.

That said, there is a certain minimalist beauty to this film that the non-squeamish will appreciate. The villains are remarkable; a seemingly invincible stone-skinned man, a tattooed woman who controls snakes, a twisted dwarf whose hunchback is actually a wasp's nest built into his flesh - these guys ain't Disney villains, that's for sure!

I watched the DVD with the English dub and the actors were very disappointing - they sounded kind of dull and mushmouthed, like an average American teenager, bringing no drama to their various readings. Also, they were a little cliched, with the gruff-voiced bad guys all sounding as though they had had colds and the good guys sounding like the cast of Beverly Hills 90211.

Overall, I enjoyed "Ninja Scroll" and will probably view other Japanese animated films. If you aren't easily put off by extreme sex or violence, you may like it, too.