This little book draws heavily on knowledge from English gardens. It has an exceptionally nice feature too often missing from much heavier rose books. It provides very nice illustrations to help one understand what's a single petaled rose, what's a double, etc. It briefly describes the roses classes and only gives photos of one or two roses in that class. The book briefly touches on cultivation, growing roses in pots, pegging, pruning, propagating, diseases with good examples, and a small number of roses with very brief descriptions. Not a definitive book on old roses by any means but at this price well worth adding to your rose library.

This book is utterly and completely useless - void of sufficient detail on any subject to be useful. Avoid at all costs.

The .NET Compact Framework Beta 1 was released in April 2002 and this book was published in February 2002 based on a 'technology preview' release. The only reason I read this is because - understandably - there is no other book out there covering the .NETcf

It's a small book of 167 A5 pages written by 4 people. There are 6 chapters starting with an introductory overview of the .NETcf and ending with advice on porting code from existing CE code or the desktop. The second chapter is about the SDE and VS.NET. This leaves chapters 3-5 which go through building a 3-tier application (GUI - middle tier - data tier).

Unfortunately, I found it to be full of syntax/grammar errors and the overall style indicates a piece of work that has gone through little review prior to going public. Irrelevant info is included (how to build Window & Web Service projects on the desktop and MMIT) and some of the relevant info is just wrong (features in Beta 1 added/dropped since PDC release). It will become even more outdated with the next release of the .NETcf in August (the final expected in November).

IMHO, there is much more info and benefit to be gained by visiting the relevant pages of gotdotnet.com and the compactframework newsgroup.

Craig Morris is brilliant and this book is simply the best. It helped me so much with my life and relationship with my computer and cat.

I knew I was going to be disappointed. How could I possibly not be? After all, this book follows on from Dialogues of the Dead (which, by the way, is a masterpiece and the best book I have ever read). However, while I was expecting disappointment, I wasn't really expecting it on quite such a large scale.

Hill here tries to juggle three plots at once, and for the most he does the actual juggling quite well, but ultimately each plot is disappointing and the endings unsatisfying.

Firstly, Pascoe's mind is occupied once again by Franny Roote, a killer he once sent to jail. However, now released, the cunning and intelligent Roote is trying to convince Pascoe that he's changed his ways and just wants to get on with his book on the poet T.L. Beddoes. But Pascoe is still convinced Roote has a more sinister agenda... Then, there is DC Wield, who attempts to rescue a lad he thinks is in danger, but instead finds himself with a street-wise rent-boy under his wing. Then, when he lad gives him a tip-off about a long-planned robbery, good old Wieldy finds himself in a bit of a pickle... And then, of course, there's Hat Bowler, living in bliss with girlfriend Rye Pomona, the librarian whom he became so entangled with during the brilliance that was "Dialogues of the Dead". But even with them, too, something shattering lurks on the horizon...

This book may be very very well written, and very funny at times (Hill is on form there, at least), but that just isn't enough. The characters are ok and well developed, at least that much can also be said. However, you get the impression that Hill just got tired of his "Hat/Rye" storyline (such a joy in the last book) and tried to give them as little page-space as he could get away with, making their storyline - potentially the best - the most disappointing, and ending it annoyingly conveniently. Pascoe's storyline is just plain annoying. The long, dull, rambling letters Roote is writing to him get annoying almost as soon as they begin, and yet we are forced to endure an incessant barrage of them throughout the book! The antagonism between the two is also incredibly annoying, and I'm dead sick of it. It's now been going on for three books, and it still doesn't appear to be over. (Additionally, it's frustrating that the Roote we meet now just isn't the same person as the egotistical, cold killer we met in "An Advancement of Learning"). Wield's storyline is the most enjoyable, but in the end even that degenerates into a mundane heist plot-line that not even Hill's interesting writing style can make engaging.

Hill has tried to do too much, and spoiled it. This could have been a great book, but it really only serves to ruin the previous one, which it is nowhere near as good as. If you've not read Dialogues of the Dead, be sure to do so without delay, and then read this one if you have to.

For those readers that loved Dialogues of the Dead, the jest's on us.

Good for research but not exactly coffee-table blurb.