With so much having happened in cosmology in the past several years, pretty much any book not written very recently or about intro topics has lost some of its relevence. With that restriction in place here, one still finds this book to be very informative and useful. Many pioneering efforts are encapsulated here, and although alternative theories have surpassed some of the theories presented in this book any cosmologist should have this book on his/her shelf.

This book is one of a few books that unfortunately, not enough took seriously when it was printed. Now, it's an excellent addition to the must - read list of any one interested in nonproliferation. Divided into several sections, the book discusses every facet of nuclear terrorism, the how, the where, and the why. Even if some of the intelligence is dated, it still is well thought out, written and presented. A topical reference for today's climate.

After Silverberg's first "retirement," he returned to science
fiction with this book--constructed out of a series of novelettes
published by Fred Pohl in _If_. It is colorful, almost gaudy
science fiction; in a way, it seems to bridge Silverberg's pulp
work of the 50's with his more thoughtful work of the later 60's
and early 70's.

As is the case with most science fiction, it appears dated in
places. During the years 1964-65, when this book was written,
some of the concerns with mysticism and trancendence embedded in
the social unrest of the later 60's were already clearly in
evidence. Silverberg shows his awareness and sympathy for these
trends in this early book.

While the themes of the book are very much of its time, the
pure inventiveness points farther back, to works like
Alfred Bester's _Tyger! Tyger!_ (aka, _The Stars My
Destination_). The "Electromagnetic Litany: Stations of
the Spectrum_" is clever and funny and ingenious enough
in its own right to sway me in the book's favor.

The quality of the writing is more than competent, and sometimes
a great deal better than that. Silverberg, for all his excellent
novels (e.g., _Dying Inside_, _The Book of Skulls_, _Downward
to the Earth_), often seems to me happier at the novelette to
novella length. Thus a mosaic novel such as this one shows
him at his best advantage.

At the same time, despite its several excellences, the book
is not devoid of a certain immaturity by later Silverberg
standards. There are a few stock characters, as well as stock
reactions here. During the ten years after this book, Silverberg
showed us how much better he could do.

Still, all in all, I'm fond of this book. I *do* think it's
good entertainment of a high order. I'd really like to give
it 3.5 stars, because it isn't a masterwork. But it is diverting
reading, even if one isn't a devoted reader of Silverberg.

These two great stories are written in that harsh realistic style so charateristic of Solzhenitsyn's works. Both stories are important on two fronts: They are both allow for primary-source insight into what many Westerners have a skewed perception of (the poverty and oppression in Stalanist Russia), and secondly, both stories present severe criticsm of human nature in such grand metaphoric form as to allow them to penetrate the reader's own soul. The phrase "thought provoking," does these stories no justice, the parables are better described as painfully applicable.

This is the worst of the Plath biographies; lurid, unscrupulous and shallow. For numerous reasons, this biography is unworthy of the attention of any individual with a serious interest in Plath and her work. This biography is virtually devoid of literary criticism; instead, its locus is Plath's sexuality. Rather than treating this subject sensitively, Alexander chooses to crudely fictionalize Plath's experiences, for, one assumes, maximum voyeuristic pleasure. I am also incensed by Alexander's treatment of Ted Hughes and the tragic suicide of his lover Assia Wevill: to paraphrase Janet Malcolm in her brilliant study "The Silent Woman," he eagerly demonizes Hughes to the cusp of libel law. Luckily, Alexander's hateful assumptions about Hughes have been discounted by the publication of Birthday Letters and Plath's unedited journals. In summary, Rough Magic is a poorly-written, one-dimensional portrait of Sylvia Plath not intended for the serious Plath scholar.

Alexander, though he professes in his introduction attention to her work, spends most of his lackluster biography chronicling Sylvia's life - her latest boyfriend or her dizzying submissions to various publications. Based on exhaustive interviews and extensive archival research - especially from Aurelia Plath, Slyvia's mother, who asked not to be identified until she died - Rough Magic (a quote from Shakespeare) probes the events that shaped the life and determined the untimely death of this fiercely talented poetess.

Long on facts, short on criticism, in the end Rough Magic (an apt quote from Shakespeare's Tempest) is shallow (it pales in comparison to my favorite, the Pulitzer-winning Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris). The biography stands apart only in its full-bodied (includes fourteen pages of pictures), decidedly sympathetic view of this emotionally unstable artist; thus, though it tells us more than we have heard before about the marriage between Plath and England's poet laureate Ted Hughes, it does so from her side, portraying Hughes as craggy, possessed with horoscopes and the occult.

Yet because Hughes has never granted an interview about Plath and refuses all rights to quote unless he can vet the work, Alexander resorts to paraphrasing Plath's work, which inherently de-energizes his page but happily makes for an artful restraint on Alexander's part, which allows the harrowing circumstances of Plath's life to speak for themselves.

At long last, a biography of Sylvia Plath written by someone who refused to bow to the editorial demands of Ted & Olwyn Hughes, who unfortunately controlled the late poet's estate at the time. Choosing freedom of speech over permission to quote Plath's work, Paul Alexander has produced an extraordinary biography that reveals the true Sylvia Plath as a girl, woman, wife, mother, and most important, author. With interviews from friends and family who had never before spoken about Plath for publication, this is a book that any scholar of Plath's life and work should not miss.

This supposed historical murder mystery will disappoint any intelligent reader unless she is deeply into the itinerary and military tactics of Alexander the Great, or what his soldiers wore. Their military clothes, that is. Author P.C. Doherty at one memorable point intrudes a scene of a "transvestite" Athenian footsoldier in makeup and drag swivel-hipping his way around Alexander's first Asia Minor army campsite, near Troy. It is unfortunately a typical example of Doherty's style: ludicrous and ahistorical, thinly written, and utterly unconnected with the plot. We do, eventually, get a fine recreation of Alexander's first great victory against the Persians, complete with what his soldiers wore into battle as well as Alexander's bold tactics, intricate strategies, fiery leadership, and personal bravery. And the Asian countryside is pleasantly depicted. But that's it. As a historical murder mystery, the book collapses, its plot totally unconvincing, its historicity in considerable doubt.

The problem is twofold. First, it appears that Doherty writes his novels at 3 a.m. during caffeine jags. Characterization moves from the muddled and inconsistent to the laughably stick-figure, particularly with Alexander's unruly bevy of battle-competent generals. The writing is hasty, off-putting, jerky. The plot makes little or no sense and moves forward in a similarly jerky, stick-figure fashion. The detective, a young doctor named Telamon, is (uncharacteristically for Doherty) somewhat complex as a person, but not very convincing as a sleuth. It is as though Doherty invented the deus ex machina to keep things moving along. The several villains are given internally inconsistent motivations and characterizations. Alexander himself is stereotypically (and ahistorically) pseudopsychoanalyzed by Doherty as the almost schizoid child of a stern dictatorial womanizing father and a feminist-mystic hysterical termagent of a mother; he is brilliant and commandingly mature at one moment, confused and peevishly childish at another. None of it seems well thought through, much less well plotted.

The second problem is Doherty's day job, as headmaster of an English preparatory school. Or, at least, so it seems. Sex between persons of the same gender, especially between adult and adolescent males, was an accepted commonplace of ancient Greek (as well as late Persian and Roman) society and it was an important part of Alexander's life and exploits. However, sex between students of the same gender, or between adult masters and their students, though constantly a temptation in single-gender boarding schools, is today utterly verboten. A headmaster who wrote in any way approvingly of such would soon be sacked. Doherty obediently follows fashion here, looking down his nose at any same-sex dealings. Moreover, modern readers ignorantly expect all same-sex relationships to be modeled upon and to approximate heterosexual ones; that the range of, and moral attitudes toward, sexual modes such as lesbianism, pedophilia, or transvestism would have been the same in the past as they are now; and that humans can only be either heterosexual or homosexual. Doherty panders blatantly to these oversimplified stupidities. While he admits that Alexander had sexual relations with several men, Doherty explains this away through amateur psychologizing. His adolescent males are either "bum boys," effeminate and mincing, or "normal," without any supposedly effeminate characteristics. Women are either "followers of Sappho" (that is, lesbian), or "straight." The reality of Mediterrenean sexual mapping two milennia ago was amazingly disparate from that of today--male/male permanent adult homosexual relationships were quite uncommon, sex by adult males with children (especially with boys) was normal and common, sexual promiscuity was a normal part of certain religious activities, transvestism was unknown, and males typically had sex with members of both genders during their whole lives, though less so as post-30 adults. (We know almost nothing about adult sexual relations between women.) Doherty seems to pride himself on his historical accuracy with regard to use of source materials, to the known events in Alexander's life, and to military matters, but he prostitutes himself on the altar of modern sexual prudishness when it comes to representing the sexual mores of Alexander's time. Along with his caffeinated writing, it ruins his historical murder mystery, for this reader at least.

First of all, I didn't realize this was a detective story.
It's about the mysterious murders that take place one after another in Alexander's camp, and a doctor called Telamon was summoned to join the camp to investigate the murder cases. Throughout the book, the king stays behind the scene, acting silly and some times as a nervous victim, until in the end the author reveals that he was the one who knew every thing.

The story moves very slow, with lots of unnecessary conversations (not dialogues), which the author seemed to have relied on to tell the whole story.
It starts with Prologue I, the scene in which Memnon and Darius go on with what seems to me a total waste-of-time conversation to talk about how to deal with this guy Alexander. But there is no significant progress, despite such a long conversation.
In Prologue II, Alexander's mother Olympias summons Telamon to her presence, and the two rambles on with a complete beat-around-the-bush conversation. The point and purpose of this meeting are not clear, it could have been done with a single intense narrative paragraph, instead of long, boring conversation.
And in the Prologue III, the author makes a huge mistake in giving a hint who the murderer is.
So the reader opens the first chapter with an idea of who the killer is.

Alexander wants to move on, but the sacrificial bulls indicate he should wait. Ptolemy, in this book an Alexander's rival, tries to manipulate the sacrificial bulls to control Alexander's decisions and plans, because he thought he was better than Alexander. More people get killed, as they hang around in the same place, and Telamon is baffled as ever. Nothing significant happens as far as the investigations go, for a long long long time, and it is a mystery how the pages filled up.
There is a battle scene, but some more unrealistic things happen at the battle field. I really can't tell the details, because it will ruin it for you.

In the very end, Telamon finally realizes who the killer is, and goes to Alexander, but the king already knew, he knew all along, and sends him to take care of the murderer.

The premise of the story is unclear, which makes the story sort of scattered, characterization is poor, historically unrealistic, and the characters are very unnatural. As a result, One wonders at the end "what was this all about?"

Though it is not all together terrible, it was an unfortunate disappointment for me. Not for mature readers.

Given Paul Doherty's prolific pen, this is the first of his many mysteries I have read. I must confess that I found this enjoyable but nothing makes it outstanding compared to contemporaries such as Davis, Saylor, Gregory et al.
The novel brings in a new sleuth - Telamon, boyhood friend of Alexander, physician extraordinaire - who uses his intellect to move through Alexander's encampment off the Hellespont to pinpoint a murderer who is killing both guides and physicians with some alacrity ensuring that a single winged celtic style dagger is left behind with each body together with quotes from the Iliad designed to unsettle Alexander's mind. In itself, this seems straightforward but Doherty moves beyond the plain murder mystery, taking us into the politics of the time as Alexander prepares to face both Arsites and Memnon, generals of Darius to weave a credible timeline and powerful motivation behind all of the actions. We are shifted from Alexander's camp to Darius palace to witness the thrust and counter of political intrigue as each seeks to confuse and misdirect the other.
In some respects, the place and method of this murder mystery echoes JMR's 'Nobody Loves A Centurion' with the culprit picking off people in a camp where politics is all important. Alexander's failure to gain good auspices, the spying and counterspying of multiple people all mingle to give both motive and opportunity to a range of people. Part of Telamon's problem is to discern precisely who is (or not) a spy and which side they are on.
Telamon is eventually enlists a red-haired Theban ex-slave, ex-handmaiden of Athena who becomes his assistant and, ultimately, provides the vital link to help Telamon discover who Naiphat, and therefore the culprit, is.
Doherty's grasp of the time is good, his characterization excellent (though Telamon seems overly dry occasionally) and his ability to confound the reader makes this an enjoyable read. The reason this only gets four stars is because all the protagonists have such good alibis that becomes inevitable that only one person can be the guilty party several chapters before the denouement. As such it ends up being more confirmation of strong reader's suspicions, rather than a real surprise.
However, this is enjoyable enough to ensure I read the next Alexander mystery from Doherty's pen.

I am not sure I can possibly convey the importance of this book and how urgently it needs to be read by almost anyone with an interest in the history of the last century. Actually, I would go further, and turn that last sentence on its ear. This is an indispensable book for those who have little knowledge of or interest in the 20th Century. People need to understand what went on in the Soviet Union between the years 1916 and 1989.

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, it was not at all uncommon, at least in Canada, for one's circle of friends to include Marxist-Leninists ' particularly once you got to University. I actually had a rather close friend who not only adopted this political philosophy, but also actively espoused the cause of Soviet Russia ' to the point of making excuses for Stalin. This made for extremely lively debates. In retrospect, knowing what we now know about communist Russia, I rather think my friend needed at the very least a good thrashing. For it was people like him, and the left-leaning western media, that gave succor to, and in a way legitimized, what we now know was one of the must shocking brutal, tyrannies ever to disgrace our planet.

The subject of the culpability of the western media, fellow travelers and communist sympathizers is covered by Richard Pipes, in 'Russia Under the Bolsheviks'. These people have, in a very real sense, blood on their hands, and I often tremble with rage when I recall the facile and damaging lies that they propagated. Under the noses of these gullible and willfully naïve 'liberal thinkers', 35 million people died, either as the result of political terror or deliberate starvation.

Alexander Yakovlev now reinforces the point with a harrowing, grim collection of essays, 'A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia.' Yakovlev was an advisor to Gorbachev and is now the head of a commission charged with analyzing and cataloging the horrors of Soviet Russia. In my review of Pipes' book (mentioned above), I had occasion to remark that in that book, Lenin came in for the thrashing that he so richly deserved. Lenin has had it easy. When the full horrors of the Stalinist period became known, Marxists and Socialists to a man rushed to point out that Stalin was an anomaly, that he and his regime had nothing to do with the gentle, humane, philosophical Lenin (and, in any event, 'one had to break eggs to make an omlette'). Some people still believe this. Do you? Well here is Yakovlev's trenchant, damning summing up:

'Exponent of mass terror, violence, the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle and other inhuman concepts. Organizer of fratricidal Russian civil war and concentration camps, including camps for children. Incessant in his demands for arrests and capital punishment by bullet or rope. Personally responsible for the deaths of millions of Russian citizens. By every norm of international law, posthumously indicted for crimes against humanity.'

Shockingly, Russians (as well and never-say-die communists throughout the world) continue to revere Lenin. This horrifies Yakovlev who notes that 'to this day the country proliferates with monuments to Lenin and streets names after him.' Worse than this, a shockingly large segment of Russian society today believes that Stalin is in need of rehabilitation, that he did nor good than bad for Russia. Stalin has become nothing more than a name to most people in the world. When Saddam Hussein was compared to Stalin, when it was noted that he had actually studied Stalin, this tended to make little impression - because most of the world has forgotten. Men like Conquest, Pipes, Figes and Yakovlev write so that we will NOT forget. Their books should be required reading, because men like Lenin and Stalin NEVER go away, they are always with us and we must be forever vigilant and on our guard that they do not take root again.

Am important book for Russians, and for all people who doubt the stark reality of the Bolshevik regime. Yakolev asserts at one point that the only true statement that came out of the Stalinist period was that there ws no change in the party from Lenin's time. Stalin, for Yakovlev, was the true student of Lenin, whoose brutality was shown from the very beginning. More, the entire system of Marxist-Leninism was flawed from the start, an untenable ideology doomed to failure. Coming from an insider, despite his ten years in the west as ambassador to Canada, and from the person who oversaw the rehabilitation of political victims under peristroika and after, these comments are damning indeed.

Yakovlev documents the atrocities--to the peasants, the church, the jews, ethnic groups, the inteligensia, to political dissidents, to prisoners of war and saddest of all to children and families of those considered dangerous to the regime. For Yakovlev Russia must purge itself of Bolshevism in order to once again move forward. At times an emotional journey, it nevertheless gives an accurate accounting. Well done.

Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev may be best known as the godfather of perestroika. He was instrumental in formulating the concept of perestroika (restructuring), in persuading Gorbachev to implement perestroika, and in bringing Gorbachev back to perestroika when he vacillated, Hamlet-like, between his liberal and hard-line advisors in the late 1980s. Yakovlev was, in a very real sense, along with Eduard Sheverdnadze, Gorbachev's political conscience.

In A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Yakovlev presents the tragedy of Russia under Lenin and Stalin. He examines in separate chapters how various constituents of the Soviet Union fared under Communism: Political parties other than the Bolsheviks, the peasants, the intelligentsia, the clergy, the military, the numerous non-Russian nationalities, the Jews. All were exploited, when possible, to further the Bolshevik hold on Russia, and executed, exiled, or enslaved when political exploitation was not possible. Yakovlev holds Lenin and Stalin responsible for 60 million deaths. These include peasants that starved as a direct result of the collectivization of agriculture and World War II deaths, many of which were a direct result of Stalin's purge of competent military officers on the eve of the war and the unwarranted trust he placed in the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Some have questioned the legitimacy of attributing these deaths to Stalin. Rather than debate that responsibility here, the reader is referred to Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, and Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime.

Yakovlev traces all of the totalitarian acts of terror associated with Stalin's rule to their beginnings under Lenin, demolishing the myth that Stalin somehow perverted the more humane party of Lenin. The book is a somber read, 200 plus pages documenting murders, torture, slave labor in the name of an ideology that is morally, intellectually, and (now, thankfully) financially bankrupt.

First of all, let me say this: I'm a big James Dean fan, I love the guy. The bio had given a lot of info, especially about his childhood. However it may have gone too far with Jimmys sexuality. Some parts kind of lead me to believe that the auther himself was gay and made a statement with this biography. Although the biography had told a lot about Jimmy, there was also a lot more details that needed to be added. And with Deans relationship with Pier Angeli, I thought needed a lot more detail. Nevertheless though, the book is a supurb one.

Honestly, the book isn't as bad as the others have said about it. I'll admit at times the book was getting too graphic in some of the descriptions of Dean's sexual life, but I wouldn't consider Alexander's portrayal of Dean's enigmatic lifestyle as being tastelessly done. Since Dean's death and his past encounters with the various people mentioned in the book remain a mystery, you should judge for yourself whether or not the book is factual. Overall, it was a really fast read and I recommend this book if you want to read up more on the tragedy of James Dean.

Of course James Dean as subject matter is about as fascinating as icons get...but this can be done interestingly, or in a empty, methodic, matter-of-fact way. Fortunately Alexander chose to eloquently string together Jimmy's whole life in such poetic form. You can't help but watch-as if on the silver screen-a birth to death biography highlight reel, in your mind. Other reviews' complaints about the sexual prominence pervading the work seem to suggest the readers were uncomfortable with bi-or homo-sexuality to begin with; thus causing a jaded un-objective viewpoint. Yes, some of the sexual references are superfluous, but never pornographic as other reviewers imply. I have read 8 JamesDean bios and found this to be the easiest and most comfortable read of all. It reads like a novel, not a history book, which I for one like. If all you want are the core statistics of ultimate highs and lows in his life, you could find that through some basic database. This is still my favorite bio on Jimmy. And if you have the consciousness to digest sexual references with maturity(rather than with the disgust and fear of a hateful homophobic) none of the mentions of homosexuality should shock Any reader more than those of heterosexuality. The book IS about his Whole Life-Not just sex. Learn who Dean was, Love him for his ravenous exploration life, and his refusal to compromise himself for anyone. Enjoy!

I'd give this book -2 stars if I could. This is a very poor book written with the author's biased view of Mormonism. If you're looking for an accurate and factual book on Mormonism, I suggest you not waste your money (and time) on this book.

I was looking for a book that would give me an insight into mormonism - this is just not that - it is just a sad persons view
that tries to dismantle something the author simply does not understand. I suggest that this is not the book you are looking for.

The grand drawn-out scale to Herbert's novels are daunting. New civilizations take birth that challenge us and our definitions of absolutes. The engine of his novels is a network of politics for a power struggle. In the Godmakers a man is pushed to his limits and forced to take a larger part into something he knew nothing about. In most of his novels religion is used as a toy to manipulate (or subue) a race or class of people. But religion is also a connector to the feats of human possiblity which Herbert dreampt up. The book is not as damanding for our attention as the Dune series. It is a more casual and relaxed Herbert telling a simpler and tight story.

For developers involved with web-based projects, whether it be an online store for electronic commerce or an Intranet site for accessing and modifying company data, the powerful blend of JavaServer Pages (JSP) and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technologies can really make life simple. Once you've mastered them, creating new components that encapsulate business logic, or new web interfaces to existing systems, is easy. The trick, for developers, is mastering the technologies.

Professional JSP is one way to get up to speed. Like many of the books published by Wrox Press, Professional JSP covers a specific technology in-depth, as well as the various ancillary topics relating to it such as databases, servlets, and XML. While not every developer will need every web technology covered by the book (and there are many), the book works both as a tutorial to cover the basics and a reference for technologies that you may encounter later.

Professional JSP starts by covering the basics of Java Server Pages, and how they relate to other web technologies. Embedded in HTML pages, JSP provides an easy mechanism for creating interactive web interfaces that draws on server-side components, known as Enterprise JavaBeans. While the presentation logic is written in JSP, the processing occurs within these JavaBean components. The book takes a balanced approach, covering both JSP and its syntax, as well as how to write and interact with JavaBeans to perform useful tasks, like accessing databases through JDBC and using other Java technologies. However, if you've read other Wrox titles, you may find there is some overlap in the topics covered.

One of the nice things about Professional JSP is that, in addition to covering theory, it goes further and examines practical applications of JSP, and issues for programmers like security and debugging. Like other titles in the Professional series, there are case studies of real projects using JSP and related technologies. My favorite would have to be the case study on porting Active Server Pages to JSP -- something that is extremely important for developers with "legacy" web systems. On the whole, Professional JSP is an excellent book for web developers wanting to get up to speed with Java Server Pages, web development, and Enterprise JavaBeans. However, developers with less of a web presentation focus and more of back-end server view may also want to consider the excellent Professional Java Server Programming title, which also covers JSP. -- David Reilly, reviewed for the Java Coffee Break

This book covers the chapters in a very structured way. It starts with a concise description of the JSP Basics with a detailed explanation of the concepts. It explains all the concepts in a very clear and simple words supported by an equally clear Comments and examples. Any body with a little of Java experience can become very familiar with the JSP syntax and concepts by reading first few chapters. It covers all the necessary JSP syntax for building a small web application to a very large distributed Application. It also explains about the way the JSP pages are processed by different web servers. For example it explains about the various methods available to maintain a persistence session and their merits and demerits. This is the first book in JSP series that explains not only the concepts of JSP and how effectively one can use them with the help of this book. It also covers various other topics like EJB, JNDI, JDBC, XML, XSLT and WML in very detailed way. Overall I feel this is the greatest JSP book ever published so far. I could build a simple and robust JSP Web application by reading the first few chapters in a short period of time.

This books lives up to its title in that it provides both real-world JSP techniques (through 7 very informative case studies chapters), as well as JSP background information that serves as a quick start guide. I rank it as one of the top 2 JSP books currently available (the other one is Web Development With JavaServer Pages by Messrs. Fields and Kolb).

After the JSP fundamentals are out of the way (which I am sure any JSP newcomer will appreciate and can benefit from), the book picks up pace with discussion on JDBC connection pooling, and the best practice for data access from JSP. Then comes the chapter on custom tags. My favorite chapters are the ones on debugging JSP's and implementing the MVC design pattern in JSP/servlets.

The case studies are very comprehensive and closely correlated to the earlier chapters. In one case study the design methodology is clearly explained with UML diagrams, which are very helpful to someone who is currently architecting an enterprise Java Web application. Other case studies cover such a wide area of topics such as JSP in combination with LDAP, EJB, XSL, and WAP.

For ASP developers, this books has two enormously useful chapters to get them started on JSP right away. One is a case study showing how to port an ASP app to JSP, and the other compares and contrasts the object model and syntax between ASP and JSP.

Having said all the above, this book does suffer from certain weaknesses. One is typical of any multi-author book, i.e., repeat of the same topic in different chapters. This is the case with JDBC, which shows up in both chapters 4 and 7. Another problem is the lack of the use of a standard servlet/JSP container, which will help new users to run all samples under the same software setting (although there is an appendix on setting up Tomcat server). Finally, a few chapters seem to be out of place in term of the logic flow of concept, such as the ones on dynamic GUI's and JNDI.

Finally, this book is still thin on heavy-duty J2EE topics, such as EJB, distributed transactions, message service, and interoperability with CORBA. This is why I consider it as an intermediate level book, not an advanced one. Hopefully we will see another Wrox book in the near future that addresses some of these issues.