This is a total departure from the first four issues of the series, "Sacrifice of the Soul." (See my review on Amazon.) This takes place in the regular Spawn world, with Sam and Twitch as the main characters. Spawn is actually not in this story.

It is a mystery. Unfortunately, there's not too much of the mystery. There are only a couple of revelations, and they're okay. The story seems confusing at first, but in the end, it all makes sense. There are explanations.

The art is good, it's very detailed. Very dark. The angles aren't bad, but not great. During the action scenes, I found myself asking: "What is going on?" It was kind of confusing.

This is R-rated Spawn. Along the lines of the animated series that was on HBO. It's hardcore. Pretty disturbing stuff. A decent amount of gore.

All in all, it's a decent effort. Not great, not bad. If you found Book 1 to be lackluster, you'll definitely find this to be an improvement.

Instead of getting this, I would highly recommend the comic series SAM AND TWITCH, written by Brian Michael Bendis. It is not in trade paperback form yet, as the series started in August 1999, but it will be in the near future. That's much better than this. Keep an eye out for that.

Without giving it away:
Gretchen is an attractive young woman and her future looks bright. Than she is hit a a car in full speed and an ambulance comes and takes her away. Two cops ride with her in the back. The intentions of the men in the car aren't what you'd call respectable. She will never arrive in the hospital. Shortly after that day more and more wanted serial killers are being found, butchered themselves. Sam & Twitch are on the case, in which the state of victims is pretty bizar. On top of that there's a guy asking their help in another case as well. His girlfriend disappered without a trace ...

Although the 'mystery' becomes clear quickly after you start reading, it doesn't grow boring. Unlike the first collection of this series, the dialogue in here is an important factor. Characters interact fluently without any need for much 'explanatory' text-boxes. It's also nice to see a variant (female) version of a Hellspawn. People who appreciate the art on the main Spawn-title will enjoy the inside work here as well. It's detailed, stylish, atmospheric and carries plenty of gore. I'd advise this book mainly to readers who're into Sam & Twitch.

I'll use this book for reference quite often. There are times when this type of cabinet is exactly what you need.

But this book creates more questions than answers, and with IBM's lack of current up-to-date documentation, I cannot see the java developer community embracing this NOW as the next logical java leap; which I think it is.

My initial excitement waned after I purchased this book. Many of the examples did not work. Written to the JDK 1.1.5, no comparison/contrast with ASDK 1.0.3 and 1.1.b2 is mentioned. Furthermore, the Tahiti server (Aglet Environment) is not even explored. To me this is a fatal oversight because an aglet cannot exist without an environment. That environment at least initially is Tahiti which comes with the ASDK the book mentions.

In short, this work is excellent in concept and poor in real-world implementation. The authors should work on a second edition. Is it worth buying? Easy. For understanding the Java Aglet concept, yes. Implementation, no.

The book is an excellent read. When I started the book, I knew every little about Agents. By the time, I was done I knew much more. The writing is extremely clear, interesting and understandable. Unlike many of the Agent fanatics, Lange and Oshima carefully explain the problems with Agent technology as it stands today.

All of this translates into a book that is useful to read even if you do not care about the Aglet technology. It is a good book for anyone who wants to understand the state of the art of Agents and see how one particular Agent implementation works.

Zero, the novel's protagonist, is a college-educated young man surrounded by downwardly mobile influences. His girlfriend and flophouse roommates spend the majority of their free time talking, drinking, and taking drugs. Dreams, however, keep Zero going, and his long walks and odd encounters inspire the possibilty of escape.

A bus trip to Oakland and visits to his neighborhood taco truck add flavor to Zero's day in, day out existence as a printer's apprentice. As the novel progresses, events add up, layer upon layer, building his desire to move up and away.

Romero's humor is consistent, and his use of Mexican-American slang is as educational as it is effective. At one point, Zero and his roommate attempt to catch a mouse that has boldly exposed itself in their kitchen. The dialogue here is comic and perfectly timed. The description of the decrepit kitchen and their bumbling attempt to catch the rodent is nothing less than laugh out loud.

Plot is not the concern of this novel; the reader dips into Zero's life at the beginning and dips out at the end, leaving him older and more experienced. Romero's work succeeds as an in-depth portrait of a man-in-progress. Rendered in clear and excellent writing, CALLE 10 makes a fine new addition to the "California novel" and to Mexican-American literature.

What I like about this book is that it starts out with building applications on the command line witch gives the reader a bottom up view of how C# applications work. The reader is then transitioned to web controls. All of the examples shown are practical applications that only a web developer would be interested in so there is no wasted time on the learning curve. This book really doesn't get too deep into the .Net environment or language but it makes a good intro, especially for people like myself who are only interested in the web application side of C#.

Another thing that really works for me is the examples are laid out very clearly and the reader sees the code as it actually exists, so there are no difficulties with assembling the examples into a finished product. I am a visual learner and if you are as well you will find that this book's format works well. Less talk...more work. Great book.