This novel is a very well developed with a great cast of characters and a very interesting story. The readers will definitely note the effort put by the author on this work in the development of the world together with the people. Note that this is not a story just about the Iron Ship; in fact, only one of its chapters has been set at sea and aboard the vessel. There are so many characters in this book and the main story focuses on six siblings, but it also draws in other characters.

A lot of head hopping is occurring in the book which might distress some of the readers at first, but the author has handled this is such a brilliant manner that allows the switches to be very smooth and not distracting from this story at all. It will be definitely very difficult for all readers to put this book down because of the quality of the world building; it is guaranteed that the readers will get lost in the story and forget that they do not actually live in the times of Hundred Kingdoms.

The only complaint will be that this book ends very soon. One of the positive aspects of this title is the way in which the author has formed the imagined fantasy world. All of the given information is very important and the ancient naval history allows readers to properly understand the characters of the book and their behavior...

At the great number of workshops and conferences I organised or co-organised worldwide, one inevitable question was always asked: when will a Maritime English textbook be available covering the essentials to be taught to and learnt by future deck and engineer officers of the merchant marine? The excuses for not having such a book were numerous; insurmountable problems of different national educational systems, lack of time and funds, no publisher interested in that specific field, etc., etc. 

Peter van Kluijven, however, Maritime English lecturer at the Shipping & Transportcollege in Rotterdam, not at all impressed by all these arguments, sat down and did what others kept putting off. Originally meant to provide a sound foundation for his own teaching he was encouraged by the Maritime English Sub-Committee of the International Maritime Lecturers' Association (IMLA) to kill two birds with one stone, namely to let the Maritime English teaching community in his classroom and share his ideas. The outcome is convincing: a well structured, English-monolingual textbook with diversified texts, tasks and projects complemented and supplemented by a CD-ROM reflecting an up-to-date content based communicative methodology of language teaching and learning titled The International Maritime Language Programme (IMLP).

It is also suited for distant learning. The topics cover the essentials a ships officer in a multilingual crew needs to master in order to successfully meet the communication requirements at sea and in ports; the book even introduces the recently IMO adopted Standard Marine Communication Phrases (IMO SMCP 2002) embedded in a well thought out context and with appropriate exercises such as role plays.

Today, the Indian Ocean to which this book is dedicated to, remains the least researched geographic region of the world. However, there have been significant cultural exchanges around its shores and across its waters. Edward Alpers, professional historian and the author of this volume has explored all complex issues relating to the above mentioned cultural exchange in the region through combining historical approach with the insights of geography, anthropology and other relevant disciplines.

The volume has already proven to be an excellent source of relevant information providing all interested readers with a brand new perspective from which is it easier to get better understanding of the Indian Ocean. What the author has tried to underline in his work was that the oceans shall not be treated only as just barriers; they are rather connecting barrier which have proven their dominance in shaping the history. The publication is packed with valuable information supplemented with the numerous very useful ocean maps and photographs.

The opening chapter of the volume is setting up the history and discussing the monsoons considered crucial to understanding some maritime patterns.... In short, this book is a very good introduction to this undeservedly under-studied region and its content will be of great interest for all lovers of the oceans and history.

Today, we are happy to offer you to have a look in this perfectly and generously illustrated publication dedicated to the boats — literally all kinds of boats have been addressed in the pages of this brilliant collection, starting from the simple rafts and to the schooners. The author of the volume, Graham Blackburn, uses his own inimitable style of writing and the results of his researchers - they have all resulted in this beautiful and complete guidebook to everything that can float.

The publication contains more than seven hundred entries describing all types of the vessels. The time period covered by the author is impressive - from the very first Egyptian craft dating as back as four thousand years B.C. to the latest sophisticated nuclear-powered ships of today. The content of the book has been arranged alphabetically and supplemented with an excellent nautical glossary, an index and even bibliography - it makes the book very practical for all people; there are more than six hundred drawings of the vessels included.

This is a real treasure for the people with the interest in sea and ships. Moreover, we would treat it not only as a well-organized cross-referenced guide but also as a standard concise reference book to be used by both enthusiasts and professionals.

This history of this book started almost a century ago. The very first release of this publication is dated about 1923. The present contemporary edition of the book continues the tradition of representing a perfect reproduction of the most important historical works while maintaining the perfect format of the original publication.

We believe that this work is culturally important in the original form and therefore did not utilize the optical character recognition technique when preparing the electronic release of the book. In our opinion, it may lead to the sub-optimal results, such as improper characters, typo errors and confusing formatting results. The authors of the original publication included numerous data diagrams and images, as well as detailed working plans and drawings of various model yachts and various small ships that would be suitable even for the amateur builders.

It does not, however, even pretend to be a specific treatise on naval architecture or yachting; it would be rather addressed to that portion of the yachting world which is interested in the small crafts and boats that can be constructed by amateurs and not professional builders. The author of the book touched the most important and interesting aspects of the design, construction and sails, with some underlying theoretical principles...  

The water-waves theory is considered a fascinating and interesting topic, including a really broad range of various natural phenomena, and covering the most important general aspects of the motion of waves, including the waves' behavior prediction in the presence of various obstacles.

However, even the simple problems sometimes appear to be quite difficult to be tacked mathematically unless you make some simplified assumption. The present interesting title has been mainly dedicated to the advanced mathematical work directly relating to the scattering of the water waves.

The main emphasis as been laid by the author on the computational and mathematical techniques that are commonly necessary in order to perform the mathematical study of these problems. The main content of this title is made up of nine chapters with the first chapter being pure introductory while the second one addresses the wave scattering that involves the rigid plates.

The following two parts cover the scattering by a rectangular trench utilizing the Galerkin technique, and scattering by a dock utilizing the Carleman equation. The fifth chapter touches several problems including the upper surface discontinuities. Remaining chapters of the work deal with the energy identities, scattering of the two-layer fluids and various wave scattering problems...

This book is designed for everyone who wish to improve their vocabulary. Regardless of how good your vocabulary is, this book will be of great use for you. The authors of this vocabulary grouped the main content of the publication into sets of words that have been taken from GRE and SAT examinations over the past 10 years, in total more than 1500 words.

The book will be helpful even for the learners having very good vocabulary since it gives them a good opportunity to find out whether they really understand what the words they think they know mean and whether they can use them in a sentence in correct way. In fact, this book may be considered the only tool required for the learners to increase their vocabulary for communication or when preparing for tests, since it provides readers with the proper definitions of the terms, example sentences and other valuable information, for instance, some appendices are there dedicated to the foreign phrases, suffixes and prefixes.

Moreover, the author has also included some self-tests so that the users could evaluate their understanding of the words and get the progress measured. This valuable resource will give you everything you need to speak, read and write better.

And here is the excellent handbook specifically designed and released for the environmental managers and policy-makers who are working for the water authorities and will also be useful for the engineering companies directly involved in various water quality programs, especially ones in the developing countries. The book will also be found suitable when used as a textbook or main/supplementary training material for the associated WQM training courses.

The recent years showed the constantly increasing awareness of the water pollution and serious concern about it all around the planet. Numerous completely new approached have been introduced and developed in order to achieve the sustainable and reasonable exploitation of the various water resources. It goes without any saying that the duly worked out policy framework is a critically important element in water resource management. The opening chapter of this volume is intended to propose some of the general principles for the entire process of policy making and of the structure or relevant policy documentation.

The text is supplemented with several real life examples of the policy elements supporting the sustainable management of the resources. The other chapters concentrate on the strategy formulation and outline the major guiding principles for the control of the water pollution.