Photoshop CS Savvy

Book Description

Savvy - n. Practical know-how.

Just about anyone who works with digital images needs to know to how to use Photoshop. But its complexity can be confounding even to experienced users. In Photoshop CS Savvy, artist and teacher Steve Romaniello reveals the secrets behind Photoshop's power—showing you how to combine theory with practical techniques to get results that are inspirational and satisfying. Whether you're a graphic artist, photographer, web designer, desktop publisher, or, if your goal is to become Photoshop savvy, this is the book that will get you there.

Work your way through from cover to cover or zero in on any topic, from setting up a Photoshop workflow to restoring old photos to creating a web photo gallery. In Hands On tutorials, you'll apply your knowledge in complex, real-world projects, mastering the techniques your own work demands. A 32-page full-color section showcases numerous color-related examples. Coverage includes:

Core Photoshop Skills: selections, type, layers, paths, paint effects, alpha channels, Quick Mask, scanning, transformations.
Features New in Photoshop CS: Shadow/Highlight correction, photo filters, Match Color, Color Replacement, Liquify enhancements, automations, support for raw camera files.
Image Retouching: Dodge and Burn tools, cloning and healing, History Brush, Dust and Scratches filter.
Color Management and Correction: levels and curves, color mapping, hue and saturation, channel mixing, CMYK conversion, printing.
Photoshop, ImageReady, and the Web: page layout, optimization, image maps, animations, rollovers.
Advanced Techniques: difficult selections, compositing, automation, duotones and spot color, advanced layering, 16-bit editing, preparing images for digital video.

Note:CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Customer Reviews:

Photoshop CS Savvy Review.......2004-06-20

I've had Photoshop CS software on my wish-list for a long time, so when I picked up the book Photoshop CS Savvy for review, I had a great reason to finally purchase the software.

With over 700 pages and a CD-ROM, this book can seem daunting, yet it can easily be used by Photoshop beginners like me. In the "Introduction," the author says it like this, "It's for those of us who take photographs, draw, paint, and cut and paste pictures. It's for computer artists, graphic designers, Web designers, and printers. It is intended to help master the software, at whatever level you might be in the learning curve."

One of the first things I noticed was the books' layout. The book is divided into four parts, twenty-seven chapters, two appendices, a glossary, and an index. When dividing 700 pages by twenty-seven chapters, there tends to be a lot of stuff that's not mentioned in a common table of contents. This book goes the extra mile by including a "Contents At A Glance" in addition to the "Contents." The "Contents At A Glance" consists of only two pages, while the "Contents" is eleven pages long and is very detailed. This allowed me to scan through the "Contents" to find something specific to read about. In my case, one of the first things I wanted to read about was "Photo Retouching." I quickly found it in Part III, Chapter 19, page 449.

Before I started using the book as a tutorial, I wanted to give it the review it deserves, so I began at the beginning. Chapter 1, The Foundations of Photoshop, was very interesting. It's interesting to me because it started with a very nice history of imaging. I read about mosaics, painting, Impressionism, printing, photography, collage, photomontage, the Web, and finally a history of Photoshop. This was a very nice bit of information before getting into the meat and potatoes of Photoshop.

Chapter 2, What's New in Photoshop CS, was really good for me because I haven't upgraded my Photoshop since 5.5. So, I had a lot of catching up to do.

Chapter 5, Setting Up Photoshop, provided an in-depth guide to setting preferences and allocating memory. I didn't even realize there was an Efficiency setting in the status bar at the bottom of the window. If the status bar ever drops below 100%, I can increase the percentage of memory (author recommends by 10% increments) until the efficiency remains at the maximum 100%.

Chapter 8, Working with Type, has lots of great information on how to use Photoshop to create type. I know type is normally created in Illustrator, but Photoshop really shines in its capability to produce cool text effects. The really cool thing about this chapter is the Hands On section. Immediately following nine of the twenty-seven chapters, you'll find nine Hands On sections. After you read a chapter or a few chapters, you come across a Hands On section. These sections are tutorials. The book tells you to access the Photoshop CS Savvy CD to select and save a file onto your disk. Now you can perform some cool Hands On stuff with Photoshop.

Although I've had Photoshop for several years, I've remained at the beginner level. After using Photoshop CS Savvy for a few weeks now, I have to say my Photoshop skills have increased tremendously. Am I a Photoshop expert? Not even close, but I am doing a whole lot more with Photoshop than I ever have before. This book will remain on a shelf close to my iMac for quick reference.

All in all, this is a great book. It has tons of great information and the CD has tutorials, software, demo software, and even a cool 45-page pdf Bonus Chapters quick reference guide. If you're using Photoshop CS, I highly recommend purchasing this book.

Book Description

You're no idiot, of course. You work hard to bring home a paycheck every month, look for the best bargains when making major purchases, and even manage to have a little left over at the end of the month. But when it comes to setting serious money-saving goals, you feel like you're tossing money to the wind. Don't let that money fly away yet! The complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Cheapskate shows you how to reform your spending habits and shop like a cheapskate. Learn the tricks of how to get more from your employer, save on taxes, and fund your future by making the right investments. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Cheapskate

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Being a Cheapskate
Mark Miller
Manufacturer: Alpha Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J2ER2G

Book Description

This year's volume of collected papers in the Current Legal Problems series provides in-depth analyses some important developments which have taken place in recent months. Public law has witnessed much activity both in the courts and in Parliament during the last twelve months and this is reflected in three essays which examine different aspects of human rights, equality, and the right to privacy. In the wake of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, two lengthy essays deal with evidence in police investigations and the concept of due process and pre-trial criminal justice.

Book Description

Analogous to genomics, which defines all genes in a genome irrespective of their functionality, metabolomics seeks to profile "all" metabolites in a biological sample irrespective of the chemical and physical properties of these molecules.

Metabolomics has the potential of defining cellular processes as it provides a measure of the ultimate phenotype of an organism, as defined by the collage of small molecules, whose levels of accumulation is altered in response to genetic and environmentally induced changes in gene expression.

This book presents a guide for new practitioners of metabolomics, providing insights as to the current use and applications of metabolomics.

Plant Metabolomics (Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry)

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Plant Metabolomics (Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Metabolomics: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology)

ASIN: 3540297812

Book Description

Metabolomics – which deals with all metabolites of an organism – is a rapidly-emerging sector of post-genome research fields. It plays significant roles in a variety of fields from medicine to agriculture and holds a fundamental position in functional genomics studies and their application in plant biotechnology.

This volume comprehensively covers plant metabolomics for the first time. The chapters offer cutting-edge information on analytical technology, bioinformatics and applications. They were all written by leading researchers who have been directly involved in plant metabolomics research throughout the world. Up-to-date information and future developments are described, thereby producing a volume which is a landmark of plant metabolomics research and a beneficial guideline to graduate students and researchers in academia, industry, and technology transfer organizations in all plant science fields.

Preprocessing and exploratory analysis of chromatographic profiles of plant extracts [An article from: Analytica Chimica Acta]

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Preprocessing and exploratory analysis of chromatographic profiles of plant extracts [An article from: Analytica Chimica Acta]
M.M.W.B. Hendriks , L. Cruz-Juarez , D.D. Bont , and Hall
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR6WNA

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Analytica Chimica Acta, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The characterization of herbal extracts to compare samples from different origin is important for robust production and quality control strategies. This characterization is now mainly performed by analysis of selected marker compounds. Metabolic fingerprinting of full metabolite profiles of plant extracts aims at a more rapid and thorough screening or classification of plant material. We will show that HPLC is an appropriate technique for metabolic fingerprinting of secondary metabolites, given that adequate preprocessing of raw profiles is performed. Additional variation, which results from sample preparation and changing measurement conditions, usually obscures the information of interest in these raw profiles. This paper illustrates the importance of preprocessing of chromatographic fingerprinting data. Different alignment methods are discussed as well as the influence of normalization. Weighted principal component analysis is introduced as a valuable alternative to autoscaling of data. LC-UV data on Willow (Salix sp.) extracts is used to evaluate these preprocessing methods and their influence on exploratory data analysis.

Book Description

This is a book for the general reader about the world of fungi. We should know more about fungi. They have killed us, saved us and served us since before written records began. We have been making bread, brewing ale, and fermenting wine for millennia. Our crops have been at the mercy of fungal diseases since we became farmers, and they still are. Fungal diseases have caused large demographic changes - from the great plague of 'St. Anthony's Fire' of the Middle Ages (caused by a fungal toxin) to the Irish mass migration to the Americas during the famine (caused by a fungal disease of the potato crop).We can also thank fungi for antibiotics, but do we fully appreciate the revolution in life style (and life expectancy) that these taken-for-granted treatments permit? One of the first people to receive penicillin treatment in England in the 1940s was a policeman in Oxford. He died of septicemia when the supplies of the antibiotic ran out after he had been scratched by a rose thorn.Fungi enabled plants (by a mutualistic combination that persists today) to invade the land during the evolution of life on Earth. Higher fungi are almost unique in their ability to decay the chemical components of timber. Without the wood-rotting fungi we would be up to our eyes in dead trees. Fungi give us the opportunity of treating plant diseases and killing specific weeds, as well as being very useful for cleaning up polluted environments and for producing chemicals. In short, this book will show you why it is wise to look again at fungi and appreciate these extraordinary organisms for what they are: a vital component of our lives and of the Earth's ecosystem.

Customer Reviews:

Is that price a typo?.......2003-03-12

This is an interestic book for mycophiles, or people just starting to get interested in mushrooms and other fungi. Some of the author's digressions into the dollar amounts of damage to industry blah blah blah get really dull. I did like learning the specific names of the organisms involved in fermentation and diseases. I used this as a source in my magazine The Urban Pantheist. I think the price listed (over seventy dollars when I wrote this) has got to be wrong. My copy cost under ten at another online book site.

If You Buy One Book on Fungi, This Should Be The One.......2001-03-15

As someone who delights in odd facts and has a curiosity about the underpinnings of our natural world, I found Moore's book to be the perfect blend of summary and specific detail, delivered in a relaxed and mischievious style. I've been on a quest for this type of book for a long time, both for personal pleasure and for research for my writing: one that went beyond the basic mushroom guide but that did not stray so far into the area of advanced scientific research that I could not follow it. Moore knows how to strike the right balance between entertainment and science in doling out the facts. I took great delight in chapter titles such as Toxins: Kill the Primates, Rule the World; Blights, Rusts, Bunts, and Mycoses; Decay and Degradation; and The Old Kingdom in Time and Space. Learning, for example, that rabbits can eat some mushrooms humans cannot is an innocuous enough fact--but learning that the Victorian cure for eating poison mushrooms consisted of downing a combination of raw rabbit stomachs and brains mixed with jam...well, that's simply the kind of detail that distinguishes an excellent book from a good book. Perhaps the best thing about the book is Moore's comfort level. He is so comfortable with this material that he revels in it--and this results in numerous corresponding delights for the reader. I have collected over two dozen books on fungi and this one is the best of the lot.

Book Description

Examines the processes operating in the headwaters and main channels of ephemeral rivers in semi-arid environments and includes coverage of current fieldwork investigations, modeling approaches, and management issues.

focuses on dryland channel networks and processes
presents a historical framework for research
discusses examples of current studies and evaluates contemporary modelling approaches
Emphasis is on the Mediterranean region, with comparisons to other dryland regimes eg California, Australia, Chile.

Dryland Rivers - Hydrology & Geomorphology of Semi-Arid Channels

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Dryland Rivers - Hydrology & Geomorphology of Semi-Arid Channels
BULL
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N55UTI

Book Description

This book gives a comprehensive account of local quantum physics, understood as the synthesis of quantum theory with the principle of locality. Centered on the algebraic approach it describes both the physical concepts and the mathematical structures, and their consequences. These include the emergence of the particle picture, general collision theory covering the cases of massless particles and infraparticles, the analysis of possible charge structures and exchange symmetries, including braid group statistics. Thermal states of an unbounded medium and local equilibrium are discussed in detail. The author takes care both to describe the ideas and to give a critical assessment of future perspectives. The new edition contains numerous improvements and a new chapter concerning formalism and interpretation of quantum theory.

Customer Reviews:

I practically owe my today's academical self to this work..........2004-10-12

As someone working in the field created by Prof. Haag - Local Quantum Physics, aka Algebraic Quantum Field Theory - I feel somewhat oblidged to write a review on this book. This is all the more true when a large amount of misunderstandings about this subject among, so to speak, "outsiders", pervade the community of theoretical physics. As for me, I had the good luck of having Local Quantum Physics as my entering door to Quantum Field Theory, after my undergraduate involvement with Nuclear Physics. Learning this through (in a major part) Prof. Haag's book, alongside with a conventional course in QFT, has helped me clear several conceptual issues underlying QFT tools and calculations - specially renormalization - which alone seemed to me more witchcraft than physics.

The aims of Local Quantum Physics, even when linked to computational issues, are eminently structural and conceptual, going beyond particular models. These concerns are transparent in this book, where only the essentials of the Lagrangian approach are mentioned, and even these with a conceptually clean and deep purpose (just to cite an example, quantization of free fields are treated in a covariant way by using the Peierls' bracket, instead of canonical quantization), and with no predilection whatsoever by any particular quantization technique (for instance, path integrals are only mentioned "en passant", with no formulas, in Section VIII.1, in the discussion on the Euclidean/Lagrangian approach to QFT). This last proviso, which is a common source of complaint, actually (at least, it looks so to me) bears the following message under the aegis of the aims above: the physical concepts of QFT have nothing to do with the quantization method chosen. Although the justification for this is somewhat subtle, it ends up being a natural consequence of the line of thinking along which this book proceeds.

Most of the things about which Prof. Haag writes in this book seem to have been thought about for a pretty long time. It's thanks to this that the formalism of Local Quantum Physics acquired a remarkably flexible and synthetic language. The underlying idea, present in almost every topic treated in the book, is the principle of locality ("Nahwirkungsprinzip" = "Principle of local action", i.e., no action at a distance). Namely, that physical procedures are all localized in finitely extended regions of spacetime, as it "usually" happens in experimental situations, and that the matter of choosing a Hilbert space on which these procedures act (often based on global criteria such as the concept of a vacuum state) is mainly a matter of convenience. The abstract framework of C*- and von Neumann algebras is what allows one to work independently of a particular representation. This is strengthened by Einstein causality - physical procedures localized at causally disjoint regions commute with each other (This is quite distinct from locality in the sense of the EPR phenomenon, which is intrinsically linked to the notion - here generalized - of states, this one still highly nonlocal, as restrictions of a state to two causally disjoint local algebras of procedures can, and do, present quantum entanglement if this state is suitably prepared), and Poincaré covariance.

The principle of locality, when applied to the myriad of inequivalent representations of the local algebras which is characteristic of QFT, lead to enormous achievements (most of them described in the book), such as: the meaning of internal global symmetries and fermion degrees of freedom, and how these emerge from the observables alone, independently of the assumption of an underlying field theory (superselection sectors); the meaning of infinities and renormalization in perturbation theory (disjointness and quasi-equivalence of representations); a natural setting for QFT at finite temperature and its thermodynamics (KMS condition, modular techniques, phase space conditions); when moving to curved spacetime, the clarification of the (still open) issue of the choice of physical states from nonessentials and how this forces us to "unlearn" several concepts of Minkowski QFT (Unruh effect, etc.). Recent developments by the schools of Wald and Fredenhagen show the growing importance of the latter and related problems.

Finally, other two admirable aspects of Haag's book are the honest treatment of latest developments regarding conceptual open issues such as the meaning of local gauge invariance in quantum theory, the infrared problem, and questions regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics and the meaning o spacetime itself. Haag's closing personal views on the latter, in the light of the mathematical formalism of Local Quantum Physics, bear an intriguing resemblance with modern ideas by Rovelli, Ashtekar, etc. on loop quantum gravity.

The book as a whole takes quite some time to digest, due to the mathematical machinery involved (functional analysis and an acquaintance in C*-algebra theory are a rather strongly recommended background) and the subtlety of the physical ideas. But, to sum up, for me it was, in due time, the ultimate temptress.

A complete recapitulation.......2002-04-26

LQFT, a kind of Axiomatic Quantum Field theory, was slowly
developed during the 1970 age to provide solid fundamentals
to quantum fields. Haag was one of the leaders of the
development, and this book resumes the climax of the theory.

From here the development has continued, looking for nets
of observables as a tool to incorporate the renormalization
mechanism. But it is to be noted that, since then, a branch
of C* algebras has developed to formulate NonCommutative
geometry, a tool completely unavailable to the people working
in Local Quantum Field Theory. One should kept a leg in
each side, aiming to marry both formalims.

Deserves 10 stars.......2002-04-16

Quantum field theory is a subject that has occupied the time of an enormous number of researchers, both in physics and in mathematics. Those who have studied perturbation methods in quantum field theory have no doubt run acroos "Haag's theorem" that is usually loosely stated as saying that "the interactive representation does not exist". The statement of this theorem, and many other results in quantum field theory, particularly the procedure of renormalization, have been viewed by many as unsound from a mathematical standpoint, and so efforts were begun to put quantum field theory on a rigorous mathematical foundation. Going by the names of axiomatic or constructive quantum field theory, these approaches are interesting, but also a little troubling from a scientific perspective. Axiomitization is usually appropriate in mathematics when a subject has matured to the point where it can be "closed off", and this usually happens when the theory is very well understood and so its essence can be codified in a few well-forumlated axioms. But quantum field theory is no where near that stage; indeed one can say that it continues to be a theory that, oddly, has immense predictive power but whose rigorous mathematical formulation remains elusive. Not only that, quantum field theory is still in a course of evolution, and any attempt at axiomitization might become obsolete as soon as it is put down on paper. In addition, physical insight, as much as mathematical understanding, must not be sacrificed in any resulting axiomatization of quantum field theory. Frequently, the result of axiomatization is to divorce a physical theory from its physical roots, and beginning students of the theory then have difficulty in acquiring intuition of the essential physics of the theory.

One of the best attributes of this book is that the author realizes this, and early on he refers to "general", rather than "axiomatic" QFT as being more appropriate since it allows flexibility in relation to future discoveries. Not only that, the author endeavors to explain the formalism that he is expousing in the book, and he succeeds brilliantly. Anyone interested in the mathematical physics behind quantum field theory, and not just doing bread-and-butter perturbation calculations, will gain a lot from the reading of this book. It is packed full of insight, a rare occurence in books that employ the heavy mathematical formalism that this one does. One will need a strong background in operator theory, abstract theory, and several complex variables to read the book, but a lot of this is developed impromptu as the text unfolds. When it is not, the author gives references for those readers who need more in-depth discussion.

There are so many ineresting discussions in this book that space does not permit an evaluation of all of them, but the following is a short list of points in the book that I found particularly well-written: 1. The Wigner analysis of irreducible unitary representations of the Poincare group. This is not a mathematically rigorous discussion, but the author points out the physical relevance of the fact that the spectrum of the 4-momentum operator must be concentrated on a single orbit. This fact ensures the stability of matter. And, as frequently happens in physics, several mathematical consequences of a particular physical theory are discarded as not being relevant; in this case the other three classes of the irreducible representations. That being said, the author does include as of possible physical relevance the idea of parastatistics. He points out his reasons for this, namely that a strict adherence to the Bose-Fermi alternative is not operationally justified. 2. The role of fields in implementing the principle of locality and not as observable particles. This fact is usually not emphasized in books on quantum field theory. 3. The author clarifies the distinction between the notion of locality that deals with the commutation of two observables that are space-like separated, and the one dealing with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and Bell's inequality. 4. The discussion on the Bose-Einstein alternative, in particular the suggestion that parastatistics can be replaced by Bose or Fermi statistics in the presence of a non-Abelian unbroken global gauge group. 5. The discussion on topological charges and their prohibition by the Doplicher-Haag-Roberts selection criterion. The Doplicher-Haag-Roberts criterion was used in scattering theory and thought to be reasonable, but the author shows that its use is problematic in this case also, as well as in prohibiting topological charge. Purely massive fields can, it turns out, have measurable correlations at large distances, and Borcher's selection criterion, also discussed along these lines, gives topological charges. 6. The treatment of the Tomita-Takesaki theorem, modular automorphisms, and their connection to the KMS-condition. 7. The discussion on the need for type III-1 von Neumann algebras in relativistic quantum field theory versus type I in ordinary quantum mechanics. Such a von Neumann algebra is hyperfinite and is unique. 8. The discussion on the impossibility of coherent wave packets of one-electron states in quantum field theory, as contrasted with the usual practice in quantum mechanics. This is dues to superselection rules and the "infraparticle" nature of electrically charged particles, which are not associated with discrete eigenvalues of the mass operator. The author asks the reader to justify electron interference experiments in quantum field theory.

The most important book about algebraic qft by its founder.......1999-05-01

In spite of the succes of quantum field theory it became very early clear that this theory needed a new mathematical formulation. Haag was one of the founders of this new theory which was later called algebraic quantum field theory but Haag himself preferred "local quantum physics".

The algebra of observables is designed as the C*-inductive limit of a net of von Neumann-algebras the index set of which is formed of open subsets of space-time. The book discusses the DHR-selection criterion as well as the BF-criterion of Buchholz and Fredenhagen that is more adequate to massive fields. Furthermore Haag gives a short introduction to statistical qft in the algebraic framework. Especially the KMS-condition which was formulated in the sixties by Haag, Hugenholtz and Winnink is discussed.

A highly recommended book!

Local Quantum Physics: Fields, Particles, Algebras; 2nd Revised andEnlarged Edition
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Local Quantum Physics: Fields, Particles, Algebras; 2nd Revised andEnlarged Edition
Rudolf Haag
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VLCTHU

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear
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Great, Even for Adults!

great

Need some campfire stories? Read this!

good book

Night is knowledge!

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear
Walter Moers
Manufacturer: Overlook Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Little Asshole.

ASIN: 1585677248

Book Description

"A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen and half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest..." says the narrator of Walter Moer's epic adventure. "...Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair's breadth, last minute escapes."

Welcome to the fantastic and wondrous world of Zamonia, populated by all manners of extraodinary characters and created by author and illustrator Walter Moers. It's a land of imaginative lunacy and supreme adventure, wicked satire and epic fantasy, all mixed together, turned on its head, and lavishly illustrated.

Customer Reviews:

Great, Even for Adults!.......2007-09-26

Even though this book is marketed towards children, I still found it a great read. The ideas were not cliched or uninteresting, everything Moers thinks up has such a feel of originality. One of the best things about this book was the pictures, it's amazing that he's a self-taught artist.

Overall, a few of the chapters were on the slow side, but most of the book will have you flipping the pages eagerly to find out what happens to Bluebear in his various adventures. Highly recommended.

great.......2007-08-13

This is one of the greatest adventure stories ever. It is a riot and Moers' illustrations had me laughing out loud.

Need some campfire stories? Read this!.......2007-08-07

This beautifully written book is for adults. But I found I could easily retell the stories to my kids around the campfire. Incredibly inventive and clever.

good book.......2007-07-24

This is a unique and funny book it starts out with a bang and you never will see whats around the corner. Each one of the chapters is in a diffrent part of the made up country from moutins to boats and forests. Each one of the chapters is a diffrent one of his lives. So i would recomand this book.

Night is knowledge!.......2007-05-24

If Norman Juster had written "The Hobbit," it might have turned out something like "The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear."

It's also the best description of Walter Moers' debut novel, which is probably the best children's book ever written for adults. Set on the mythical continent of Zamonia, Moers sketches out hundreds of strange creatures and surreal adventures, all written in wryly colourful prose.

Bluebear was found floating in a walnut shell, raised by peg-legged hook-handed Minipirates, taught by the talking waves, and kept as entertainment by gruesome hobgoblins. But when he ends up on a giant carnivorous island disguised as a gourmet's paradise, Bluebear is rescued by Deus X. Machina, a Reptilian Rescuer who later brings him to the Nocturnal Academy, run by the seven-brained Professor Abdullah Nightingale.

But when he reaches the end of his education, Nightingale sends Bluebear onto a strange series of adventures -- he falls into a Dimensional Hiatus, is almost eaten by the Spiderwitch, travels through a Bollogg brain, gets swept up in an aging tornado, chases mirages with the Muggs, and finally becomes a Congladiator (lying/storytelling competitor) in Atlantis. But after a match gone bad, Bluebear must flee Atlantis -- and is abducted by the Moloch, a monstrous ship run by the most insidious substance in Zamonia...

Walter Moers should get some kind of award for cramming as many fantastical, bizarre creatures into one book -- carpet dimensions, tiny cyclops, hairy imps, metallic rock-eaters, killer sugar-skeletons, antlered dogs, and headless giants all turn up, and that's only the start. It's a good thing Bluebear gets an encyclopedia in his brain (from Nightingale), or else we would never keep them all straight.

And Moers brings this to life with writing that is straight-faced, detailed, colourful, but still slightly arch ("It should be explained that in the 2364th Dimension music is played on instruments made of milk"), and full of bustling cities and sandy deserts. There's even a city that flies to another planet. But the whimsical plot pulls itself together in his last few-and-a-half lives, where hints and subplots from his previous lives come together -- and we finally find out Bluebear's destiny.

Bluebear himself is a likable guy, as well as very adaptable -- and somehow no matter what bizarre things he does, he's always just as likable. The supporting characters are wildly numerous, but a few stand out -- Fredda, the Alpine Imp who writes bad poetry, a gelatinous prince 2364th Dimension, the grumpy Mac, and the gloriously eccentric Professor Nightingale.

Except for its length, you'd think "The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear" was a kids' book, with its whimsical drawings and colorfully imaginative little world. But it's full of humor, solid writing and bizarre twists -- definitely a good read.

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