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brendan f kelly

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Great history of early baseball

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-18-24

First, the narration is first rate. Fantastic. Secondly, the author really knows his stuff. This is a very detailed and interesting story. Sometimes he strays from the topic, sometimes very far from the topic ( Im thinking about waiters strikes, anti Immigrant sentement, and the still unsolved murder of a beautiful and mysterious cigar girl) but even these stories are interesting and colorful. Fantastic book.

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This is NOT a history of baseball

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-16-24

This is yet another whiny self centered screed about an over privlidges recently divorced woman who works at a university and how ,.. oh i dont really care, she has some sort of first world problems, and considers herself interesting and fasciating and put upon simply becase she sucks air. I was looking for a book about, oh you know, a History Of Baseball!!! This is not it

The narrator is delightful and dose such a great job that I almost cared, but even her fantastic work can not overcome the incredibly self involved text.

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Definitely at B+, fun in parts.

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-17-24

I'm a fan of Mr. Haldeman, but this one was a bit of a mixed bag. First of all, without spoiling anything, I thought that the method of time travel used here, as well as the story of its' discovery was among the best Sci Fi I've ever read. The first half of the book is really great.

That being said, the quality drops off a lot in the second half. The inherent limits involved in this particular form of time travel continue to make the story more fun and believable, but the societies that we enter become less and less believable, and the story starts to drag.

One society, which serves mainly as a way for Mr. Haldeman to disapprove of religion, is absolutely self-contradictory. The evil and oppressive totalitarian and tyrannical bad guys, thugs that squash even the slightest signs of heresy or dissent, inexplicably not only give our hero a place to stay and free food for no particular reason, but also our hero wander around freely saying and doing all sorts of things that should be getting him in trouble for far longer than makes any sort of sense. Perhaps this is Mr. Haldeman's way of saying religious believers are inherently stupid, but these folks would have to be dumber than a pile of bricks, and twice as unobservant for them to act the way they do. Their actions simply make no sense. After a rather entertaining escape, our heroes continue their journey through a series of adventures that are distinguished only by the minimal amount of effort and imagination that went into writing them. Eventually, following a visit of the U.S.S. Deus Ex Machina the story comes to an unexpected, (in fact VERY unexpected) but nonetheless highly satisfying and enjoyable conclusion. Sadly this comes at the expense of leaving a key plot point unresolved, which leaves a plot hole big enough to sail the 7th Fleet through. This book reeks of "contractually obligated to finish it". The excellent writing and structure of the first part gave me very high expectations for what was to come, and the second part of the book definitely failed to meet those expectations. Nonetheless most, or at least much, of the book was fun. The method of time travel was innovative, and the explanation was brilliant. Just don't expect to much from the last half of the book, and you will probably enjoy it more than I did.

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Very disappointed

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
2 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-17-24

There are only three things wrong with this. First of all, this translation contains Thomas Olden's extensive, scholarly introduction and all of his notes and commentary. To call them "extensive" is an understatement, as they are longer than the actual Confession of St. Patrick. If I did the math right, the actual part of the book that was written by St. Patrick took up 46 minutes. Considering that this is a one hour and fifty seven minute book, that should tell you exactly how extensive Rev. Olden's notes and commentary are. One gets the impression that Rev. Olden thought somewhat highly of himself.

Secondly, Thomas Olden wrote this in the late 18th Century, and he was a Curate of the Anglican Church of Ireland, which is the Irish branch of the Anglican Communion. Since Irish independence the Church of Ireland has shrunk quite a bit, As of 2016 it has approximately 384,176 total members and 58,000 active baptized members out of an Irish population of approximately 5,281,600.

This is important to note because, given his time and sectarian allegiance, Rev. Olden is decidedly anti-catholic, and it shows. That's just how things were 130 years ago, and as a Catholic I don't see it as anything to get upset or bothered about, That being said, if you decide to spend an hour of your life listening to his VERY, VERY, VERY, extensive notes and commentary (not much of which is actually about St. Patrick himself) you probably want to be aware of Olden's point of view going in. For example, early on Rev. Olden complains that St. Patrick "..was associated, in the popular belief, only with puerile fables and ridiculous miracles" and that "...no one thought of doubting that the doctrines which he taught were those of the modern Church of Rome".

The last complaint I have is about the reader, mainly because there isn't one. This is pretty obviously the product of an A.I. I first noticed that the reading was somehow a little off. It is a very good A.I. and not nearly as monotone as you would expect from a computer, but the pauses seemed unnatural. What finally gave it away was when Rev. Olden used the then popular abbreviation for manuscript, "ms". Apparently this wasn't included in the A.I.'s programming because instead of saying "manuscript" it actually said the letters "m.s.". That took me a bit to figure out. Then when it read out roman numerals by individually pronouncing each letter in "xviii" instead of saying "18" it all came together.

That being said, the "reader' is very clear and understandable, and at no point did I have any difficulty following the story or the action. Also his voice while not pleasant, was far from unpleasant. I know of more than a few human readers of which neither of those things can be accurately said.

Given that this work is in public domain, and they didn't even bother to hire a flesh and blood reader, I can only suppose that the folks who put this edition out are still making bank even at the low $4.76 price I paid. That being said, the "Confession" itself is well worth the low price, especially if you skip all the commentary.

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We Could Do Worse Audiobook By Larry Niven, Howard Waldrop, Harry Turtledove, Gregory Benford, Mike Resnick, Kristine Kathryn

The book is called "We could do worse". No you cant.

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-19-24

First of all, this is a collection of stories, so your favorite author (in my case Niven) only wrote ONE of the stories, and chances are you've already read it. Secondly, the audio has problems. Every chapter begins with the last line of the story before, and is in turn, missing its' last line. Also some stories seem to be professionally read and audio mixed, others sound like they were done in moms basement by someone with a cassette recorder. The Massachusetts Yankee and Return of William Proxmire were great. Bloodied Ground and Ike at the Mike definitely held my interest, but none of the others did. At that Ike at the Mike, while fun, was a bit long. It was a fun idea, but it really couldn't support a story that long. Except for the above mentioned stories, I lost interest long before the author did. (One suspects that some of these authors were being paid by the word.) The performance of the very last story was excellent, the audio was great, and the reader knocked it out of the park, but sadly the text and plot were pretty bad.

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The book is called "We could do worse". No you cant.

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-19-24

First of all, this is a collection of stories, so your favorite author (in my case Niven) only wrote ONE of the stories, and chances are you've already read it. Secondly, the audio has problems. Every chapter begins with the last line of the story before, and is in turn, missing its' last line. Also some stories seem to be professionally read and audio mixed, others sound like they were done in moms basement by someone with a cassette recorder. The Massachusetts Yankee and Return of William Proxmire were great. Bloodied Ground and Ike at the Mike definitely held my interest, but none of the others did. At that Ike at the Mike, while fun, was a bit long. It was a fun idea, but it really couldn't support a story that long. Except for the above mentioned stories, I lost interest long before the author did. (One suspects that some of these authors were being paid by the word.) The performance of the very last story was excellent, the audio was great, and the reader knocked it out of the park, but sadly the text and plot were pretty bad.

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I've seen Don Piper in person, and this is true.

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-22-23

I have long been interested in accounts of Near Death Experiences. To be honest, I'm more than skeptical of most of them. Because I live in Houston I was able to see Don Piper when he came to speak at the church I was then attending. Seeing him in person I can say he was humble, funny, self-deprecating, authentic, and completely believable. Unlike a lot of other NDE stories, I have no doubt that this one actually occurred. This account is truthful, and (unlike a lot of other "near death experiences" account) I have no doubt at all that this is completely true. How this truth impacts your own life is up to you. You may like it, you might reject it, but either way, it is still true.

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Horrible, evil book about how to manipulate people

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-22-23

I was expecting a book about romance, but this is entirely about manipulation, how to USE people. It isn't about love it is about power. Cold, soulless, chilling. Horrible.

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Great inspirational book....

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 01-31-23

This is a great book if you're feeling down, or your life is a mess, because this book is TRUE. Mrs. Fulwiler doesn't feed you a lot of inspirational platitudes, She tells it like it is.. and part of "like it is" is "this worked for me". This isn't someone sanctimoniously telling you "When God closes a door, He also opens a window".... (which would REALLY suck if you were an astronaut... or an airline pilot... or a submarine captain). This is someone honestly talking about the challenges involved with how to (in the words of Prince) "...to get through this thing called life" and still be sane at the end. You'll laugh, you'll sympathize, occasionally you'll be impressed, and if you're very lucky... you might just learn a little something too.

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Loved it.

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-12-22

Now I know why all my friends love Larry Correla's books. They are great fun. My only complaint is that the otherwise excellent performance is marred by the narrator's difficulty with some of the female voices. They aren't the best. Julie, especially sounds less like an intelligent accomplished sexy woman than a guy doing a bad fallsetto with a bad southern accent. On more than one occasion I lost track of who was speaking.

That being said, he does the action sequences incredibly well, which makes up for a lot.

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