The review says "Think of the food replicators in the imaginary future of Star Trek--with some basic chemical building blocks and simple rules, those machines can produce everything from Klingon delicacies to Earl Grey tea. If scientists can understand and apply the knowledge they gather from studying emergent systems, we may soon witness the development of artificial intelligence, nanotech, biological machines, and other creations heretofore confined to science fiction." -- What?? Like we are about to make food replicators because of the "deep understanding" that we now have of emergent systems??

I agree with the other reviewer who says the book is characteristically weak. The cover is prettier than Hidden Order. But so what.

There have to be better books on complexity than this for the average popular science reader.

Parts of this book were interesting, but overall it was much ado about not much, and what was done was often overdone (I agree with another reviewer on this point). I see that Amazon has coupled this book with Hidden Order. I can't see why. It would be like buying the same book twice. Anyway, so much of this has been warmed over so many times now that it's frankly a bit dry. I'd like to see a book that really breaks new ground in complexity without overusing buzz words or talking down to me, holding my hand through simple things. Here, the topic is more attractive than the content I'm afraid. Anyone really interested in complexity and emergence will need to go into technical details well beyond this book. Others, like me, will likely find the details that are here to be a bit tedious.

While the intended audience is the general interest reader, this book will be a bit complicated for most people who are unfamilar with Turning Machines, i.e., stack machines, etc.