Rating: 
Summary: WOW
Review: Much more than I expected, much better than I had a right to expect. I hoped it would be entertaining and exciting, but I didn't expect to learn so much. The information ranges from ancient Roman engineering techniques to Cartesian geometry, from the price of three tables and thirty chairs at the Tweed Courthouse ($3.2 million in 2001 dollars) to the importance of Jupiter in protecting earth from comets. Thomas Hobbes, Idi Amin, FDR, Typhoid Mary, Pericles, Le Corbusier, the Chinatown Tongs, Taki 183, Malcolm X, Jackie Kennedy, Ted Williams and Henry Hudson all find their way into the narrative. The economics, politics, history, demographics, architecture and spirit of New York are between the pages of this slim volume, worked seamlessly into a series of adventures that were as terrifying as they were thrilling.
Rating:
Summary: NYC exposed
Review: Part history, part travel log, part action adventure, part philosophy, entirely entertaining- Invisible frontier lays open whole new worlds contained within NYC. The adventures are exciting and the social commentary spot on.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrically Wonderful
Review: There's a lot of buzz generating in NYC about this book so I had to check it out.These guys know their city adventures and they also know their philosophy and literature. Who would think that an old abandoned aqueduct would bring to mind the words of Dante's Inferno? Great summer reading. Not too smart to be boring but it never talks down to you. You'll definitely look at everyday bridges and rooftops and basements as inspirations after reading this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This book is a mixture of history, science, politics, philosphy and good old fashioned adventure. The writers take you along on each of their urban explorations allowing you to join in fun. All in all I was thoroughly entertained and learned a little more about the hidden New York.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, there's four hours of my life I'll never get back.
Review: This book was a tremendous disappointment. Many of the "missions" are laughably boring and/or carried out in a stunningly inept fashion, much of the writing is markedly narcissistic in its tone and yet inconsistent in content, and perhaps most disappointing the descriptions of the places where the authors go are remarkably poor.
First, the missions. The mission to the UN mostly involves trying to get inside by asking for an interview. Wow, it's like working for my high school newspaper all over again. Once they're shot down, one member of the team briefly sprints past a barrier and `explores' a plaza outside the building for less than a minute (the main point of which is to hold up the Jinx flag while his friends take his picture). Another involves staying on the subway even after the conductor announces passengers should get off! - oh the bravery and cunning!. This is made all the more ridiculous when two non-English speaking tourists inadvertently do the same thing and when the authors do not even get off the train once it's stopped at the abandoned subway station they had planned to explore. Later, they go into an abandoned house, where they discover that a lot of other people have also done this over the years.
Second, the writing. Much of the text focuses on how cool they look in their "uniforms" (dark suits and sunglasses), how cool they look walking to their missions, how cool they look on their missions, how cool it is when they all get together and how everybody else in New York are mindless zombies who don't appreciate what is around them because they are trapped in their sad, meaningless lives. The whole uniform thing is particularly stupid. There's one throw-away sentence explaining that they wear these uniforms because otherwise "scientists" and "philosophers" will not take their "empirical data" seriously, but you simply can't shake the feeling that they just want to look like they're either in "Reservoir Dogs" or "The Matrix" (particularly when the ridiculous `uniforms' keep attracting attention when they're trying to sneak into some place.) Throughout the book the authors bounce between stressing that they explore places for the scientific, empirical value of doing so and that it is not at all for a sense of adventure, only then to talk later about how much fun the adventure of it all is (including one author's admission that he believes the other has a death wish and that is why he engages in so many dangerous activities while exploring). In addition, much space is taken up with various diatribes on the evils of modern life (including a particularly passionate rant against the United Nations that comes totally out of nowhere), and all the horrible twenty-somethings of the world who spend their lives drinking iced coffees (which is a particularly hollow complaint when - a few pages later - the Jinx crew sits down to iced coffees after having screwed up the UN mission). You almost get the sense that after trying in vain to improve the writing, the publishers finally decided to spin the writing as "witty" and hope that people fell for it.
Finally, the descriptions are no better than what you'd get if you wrote down what you think the locations look like without ever actually going. The Croton Aqueduct is dark and slippery. An abandoned subway station is eerie. When you're on top of the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River looks a long way away. And that's about as good as the descriptions get.
Don't waste your time or your money.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesing...
Review: This interesting book tells the story of a group of urban explorers who seek out and search city ruins in New York City. The book is enjoyable and a fast read, but sometimes the place that the explorers check out don't seem that intersting. Sure, there is generally lots of history in the places they explore, but the book doesn't really tell much about that. Instead, the book seems to focus a little too much on the whole cloak and dagger aspect of urban exploration. Regardless, I did enjoy the book and it is a recommended read.
Rating:
Summary: Harrowing and brilliant
Review: This is a gonzo, adrenaline-soaked set of adventures, but don't be fooled-it's smart, challenging stuff. History, science, philosophy, engineering, and architecture provide the meat on the narrative spine. Somehow these guys get a lot of research done when they're not hopping third rails or climbing six hundred foot tall bridges. Reminds me of Malcom Gladwell, if he were an action hero.
Rating: 
Summary: Minimal pictures
Review: Very interesting subject; wish authors had provided more substance. Very disappointed with lack of photos especially with constant reminder of photographers who were amongst group of explorers. I too also have my doubts regarding editors/publisher of this book.
Would NOT recommend purchasing.
Rating:
Summary: A painful failure --
Review: Woe to those who waste their money on this book! It seems well-packaged, but then you open the cover... the first lines are so egregiously pompous and over-written that the reader thinks that it must be an introductory joke. But it goes on, and on! If you ever need to provide someone with an example to define the word "turgid", hand them this book. It seems completely unedited (the editor must have given up after the first paragraph) and is thus rife with contradictions, both literal (after a boastful paragraph about being well-dressed unlike the common man, the writer then describes his cheap shoes; after bragging about lugging 70 pounds of camera equipment, the writers fail to produce any interesting photos) and thematic (the self-described "agents" set their own goals... and then fail them over and over). Particularly ludicrous is their Harlem adventure, where they bypass exactly the buildings they seek in favor of a conveniently accessible construction site. As an urban explorer (mercilessly unaffiliated with such buffoons) I appreciate the intention to link contemporary infrastructure to historical or mythical realms, but these writers fail miserably; they may see themselves in those domains, but they come off as a group of clumsy, geekish, petty trespassers.
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