Unlike some of the other IQ testing books I've seen, this one has some puzzles that are quite challenging and really make you think as well as some easier ones for beginners. In fact, the more challenging puzzles are entertaining and amusing and it makes the book worth the buy. On the other hand, the IQ score should not be taken seriously. The IQ scoring itself is arbitrary and it doesn't really say how the test was normed except the book keeps mentioning about volunteers who found such and such an item particularily easy or difficult. I would presume then that they use the scores of the volunteers to generate some kind of IQ bell curve from which can be used to generate your IQ score. The problem with this is that these are volunteers and the people who are going to volunteer to do such puzzles are probably more intelligent than average anyway which means that your IQ will probably be underestimated. For instance, I qualify for Mensa, but based on the test in this book, my IQ is a disappointingly low 108! The book attempts to sort puzzles by difficulty level but does not always do a good job. The elementary level does have some no-brainers but also includes puzzles that would be more appropriate for the challenging level. Conversely, some of the puzzles in the harder levels, are really elementary. A lot of the puzzles require knowledge of obscure trivia to solve, penalizing those who have may have good reasoning powers but are not walking encyclopedias. In short, Test Your IQ Skills makes for a good puzzle book but not as a good IQ testing book

If you are an absolute beginner to programming games in Linux this book might be useful in that it introduces you to some of the main libraries used in Linux game programming but the book lacks any real information. Even if you read it from cover to cover you still won't know enough to make even the simplest game. The best thing you can say about this book is thay it can give you some hints about where you can really learn to do Linux game programming.

This book is a good overview of what gaming libraries are out there for programming in linux and some fundamentals on getting several of those gaming libraries. But that's it...

I've found the book to be extremely lacking in depth or finished code samples. It gives snippets on how to accomplish something then leaves you hanging. Plus there are quite a bit of syntax errors in the code that can leave a beginner quite frustrated. Nothing is worse than cutting and pasting code from a book word for word and not having it compile because of poor book editing.

The author tries to cover everything from sound, to video, to AI, to networking - with several different libraries - in a 300 page book. And a good fifty of those pages are concerning the gpl and other licenses. Knowing about the GPL and about open source is great, but not when I spent money on game programming (video, sound, ai). What this results in is less than 10 pages on one particular topic.

To sum up: browse this book in the bookstore and then keep moving. Buy yourself a better C++ or OpenGL book instead. Or just go online - better information exists out there.

The author knows what he is talking about and you can tell that he has been there himself. The experiences he shares are invaluable - they save you so much time! This book gets you started by answering the really difficult and important questions: What are the best libraries and tools to use, how do you get the major obstacles out of the way and what are the basic principles in modern game programming. If you have ever strived to write top quality software you will appreciate and undertand the advice in this book.
This won't teach you how to program in C/C++, although there is plenty of good general advice. But it will teach you what you need to know to write games in C/C++.
If you are looking for completed source code that you can tweak a bit to have your "own" game, look elsewhere. If you are a C/C++ programmer, but not very familiar with Linux, graphics, sound, or networking - this is for you!
I loved the authors humour, too, by the way. Excellent reading.

This is probably one of the most abysmally bad science fiction books I've ever read in my life.

I can't figure out if Caidin was trying to be nostalgic and write in a 1930's pulp-fiction style, or if he thought he was trying to update '30's style writing to the present day, but in either case, the book is an astonishing failure, like trying to build a nuclear reactor out of styrofoam, wood chips and Elmer's glue.

The book is quite frankly racist, to begin with. It's embarrassingly racist. No racial stereotype is left unmolested. You would think that someone at the publishing house would have spotted this gigantic faux pas, but apparently they were blithely blind to it. Secondly, the author is frighteningly enamoured of technology in general, and rhapsodizes for literally paragraph upon paragraph about things like polished mirrors, laser beams, and obscure parts and pieces of World War II aircraft. His techno-fetishism finally becomes hilarious. "Oh look, a bolt! Wonder how many pages he could write about it?"

Third, the plot is a huge mess with no point. Fourth, the characters have about as much depth as your average business card. Fifth, the book is sexist as well as racist.

But let me be positive. What good things can I find to say about this book?

Well, it's easy to read, except for the parts where Caidin starts going on and on about technical details of Messerschmitt ME 109 aircraft. And, um...it's funny, although inadvertently so. And the hardback copy I found, had a copy of Phil Nowlan's original 1933 "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" novelette bound in the back.

The sad thing was that Nowlan's novelette, which was originally offered as a prize for mailing in your cereal boxtops, was far more interesting at 31 pages than Caidin's entire novel. And since Nowlan's "Buck Rogers" is being sold here at Amazon without the dead weight of Caidin's book attached to it, you now have no reason to buy Martin Caidin's "Buck Rogers: A Life In The Future."

Thank whatever gods you believe in that this enormous mess of a book is out of print. And if you see it in a used book sale at a library, like I did, LEAVE IT THERE! I wish I had...

I am not sure of the caliber of Mr. Caidin's (the author) other works, but this one was a definite let down. He has taken one of the best loved space opera sagas and turned it into hectically paced, disjointed work with carbon copy characters and a theme that degrades all the principles that Buck Rogers stands for.

The story is based on the classic 1930s Space Opera about a man from the 20th century who pulls a Rip Van Winkle and winds up in the 25th century in the midst of a war between the East and the West. Mr. Caidin tries to put an updated spin on the story by creating a fantastic autobiographical representation of himself as the hero Anthony "Buck" Rogers. Buck exists as the epitome of all pilots, with training in every aircraft and a history with both the military and a civilian pilot. He is a veteran flyer working as an airline pilot who moonlights as an air show performer. He gets injured in 1996 and to save his life, scientists put him into stasis for 400 years. ..Unfortunately Buck seems to have as yet unseen abilities added to his resume as the book progresses but in such a way as to make them seem as afterthoughts. I have seen "made for TV" movie scripts that have more well defined plot and characters.

I am not being overly critical either. The book is a collection of disjointed scenes, with poorly devised transitions and weak, trite dialog. The pace of the "action" is so thinly described that it is not believable or even understood how the hero Buck, goes from a relative stranger in America of the 25th century, to a Brigadier in the military in a matter of months. The author "forgets" about character development as he proceeds through the novel and leaves many of the primary characters sitting at the roadside with little discussion as the book leaps and skips forward. Even more unbelievable is that Mr. Caidin has the motivations of the nations of Earth in the 25th century revolve around activities that took place in the 20th century and earlier. He includes no social development for the past 400 years from the time that Buck was born and lived to the time when he joins the remains of the American state in the 25th century. The appearance of alien life influencing earth is more believable than the actions of the countries involved in this future space war.

It would be acceptable if the book had a "campy" nostalgic feeling like the Dick Tracey or the Rocketeer movies. Unfortunately it tries to take its self too seriously and it comes off very heavy with a depressing message of hate and distrust.

The "Social Racism" wound into the plot about distrust of foreign powers based on activities from centuries ago make the book a target for ridicule and unless it is a vehicle for the authors plot development, .... It is this kind or continuation of hate that causes children today to be brought up to think of Blacks, Asians or even Women as second class citizens, or the Jews or Moslems as being universally evil.

The author details how the Chinese and Mongols returned to their Horde roots and conquered the world in the beginning of the 21st century and that the US and its allies have been fighting them ever since. It likens the modern Asian races as a bunch of saber rattling warlords that are less than a stones throw away from their horse riding ancestors.

Caidin labels the Japanese as a sneaky race that is willing to do anything to become a dominant force on Earth is underscored in the closing chapter of the book when Buck rationalizes his distrust of a Japanese ally by bringing up the Pearl Harbor attack as an example of the deviousness of the Japanese, 400 years after the event!! I would be like the English labeling the United States as terrorists because of the Boston Tea Party.

All in all, I think that Mr. Caidin took a good foundation and a creatively original plot and ruined it by his mishandled treatment of the material and his desire to make a racism fueled society of tomorrow. He had the chance to make a wonderful story and he failed at his attempt. I would not recommend this book to anyone with out the caveat that is might have been an exceptional book with a bit more effort.

When I first saw the title of this book, I thought 'No way! Someone has tried to recapture the Buck Roger's space opera epic.' then I saw the author and took interest. Mr. Caidin has done a great job at updating this tale. Agreed, it is not a major work in terms of the brilliant work he's done in the past, but it is still a wonderful read. If you are a techie that enjoys a formula space opera, then this is a good, and fun read. Nicely done.

This book had a cute idea but was poorly made. I was very disappointed with the whole flap thing. Most flap books have sturdy flaps that you lift up or down and they are on the actual page...this one has flaps that are attached to the binding of the book, so it's like an extra page only it's 1/4 the size. When you turn the real page, the flap on the next page is already up so you don't get a chance to "guess" at anything because the thing never stays flat. Also, the characters/objects are located in the middle where the binding is, so you can't appreciate the illustration because the view is obscured by the binding. Whoever decided to make this a flap book needed a lesson in "Flap Books 101". It COULD HAVE been a good flap book if they hadn't revolved everything around the binding.

This is an okay book that will teach you very basic things about chess wouldn't recomend