Although I've read a lot of science fiction over my 30-plus years, I've found that typically there's a mechanical process at the heart of it, ticking away plot points, waiting its time to spring into full deus ex machina glory. Meanwhile, romance is awkwardly introduced, and mindblowing ideas are thrown onto the page.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom suffers from none of these flaws, and will be easily regarded in the future -- that mythical time that never comes -- alongside works of Philip K. Dick, although Doctorow's prose never gets out of control or wound up the way Dick's does.

Down and Out isn't a future so much as our inevitable outcome given the current ideas of technology, religion, and consumerism. Nothing in the book seemed unfamiliar, no matter how exotic it was, probably because Doctorow rooted the book so firmly in the Disney Nightmare that is modern entertainment.

I've been backstage at Disneyland and have met some cast members and Imagineering designers, and so his description of that kind of taken to the logical extreme occupation of the magic kingdom by people who want to make it better -- rather than make money or who have property rights -- doesn't strike me as odd, and his insights into what makes rides tick should gain him entrance to the Imagineering world.

The story at the heart is compelling, and Doctorow engages in only a few Moby Dick like expository techniques to draw you into the world and then body slam you with a concrete instanciation. Death is dead, the future is before is, and the question he asks is, really, what the hell are we going to do with ourselves? Put on the hat with the rounded ears, obviously.

I'm not sure what book two other [Amazon.com] reviewers were reading, but Matthew Gast's does not suffer from the flaws they state: it's a comprehensive book with a laser-beam focus, and they're criticizing a book this isn't. Why no Ethernet primer? Because it's a focused 802.11 book. Why no reporting of security flaws discovered in mid-2001? Because the book was being printed then -- but the book delves deeply into the security model underlying 802.11, which is what it's about.

I recommend this book highly for anyone who needs a protocol level on up view of 802.11 for planning, deploying, or understanding 802.11 networks. It's a constant reference guide for me, and it's never steered me wrong.

If you read the critical reviews carefully, the first (Kevin) complains about when it was published, and the second (anonymous) complains about the book but then admits he or she hasn't read other 802.11 books and doesn't explain whether he or she has relevant knowledge.

Because most systems deployed are 802.11b based, this book retains its utility. At some point, probably within the next six months, another edition will be needed to deal with the current draft 802.11g standard, the new WPA security protocol, and the coming 802.11i, h, e, and f protocols. But as long as you're dealing with 802.11b, this is the ultimate guide for network administrators and software developers.

Mike Daisey has a gift for taking perfectly ridiculous situations that he found himself in the middle of and making them not just humorous but side-splittingly funny. I've seen the play on which this book was based, and the book isn't a transcription. In fact, it's an entirely new level: it's a love story. Well, two love stories. One of the love stories is about him and his now-wife, and her sensible, grounded, occasionally wild-party animal advice and behavior. The other love story is about a crush on a company and its founder (well, this company that you're reading the review on).

The book waxes and wanes both love stories, though you know he's going to wind up with the girl, not the stock options and the guy.

I worked at Amazon.com before Mike's tenure, and I recognize many of the portraits in the book. I left before I lost my soul to overwork; the corporate culture was a thing of beauty when I was there. I still work for a living, and Mike works incredibly hard to turn the grist he got during the height of dotcom insanity into a beautiful set of life lessons that, hopefully, we'll all take to heart. I know I did and still do.

I confess that I'm a fellow author of an Adobe GoLive book, and I love this title. Why? Because it offers long, detailed, masterful tutorials on some of the most complex and underdocumented features in GoLive that can also be incredibly powerful, especially for increasing efficiency and flexibility. GoLive 6 Magic lets your creativity get further unleashed by removing the restriction of relying on your own smarts to learn the most advanced features in the program.

I was relieved to read GoLive 6 Magic because it's the graduation present for our readers: many topics on which we can touch briefly or offer a simple overview are presented across several pages with illustrations and accompanying examples on CD-ROM.

You learn not only how to use advanced graphics tools, but how to modify GoLive Actions (plug-in JavaScripts) and build rich dynamic content.

Far be it from me to suggest you buy both this book and my book, but they're a nice complement to each other. If you've sucked the marrow dry of beginner and intermediate sources, buy this book: it'll help you master the rest of the program.

Dan feels like a long lost brother. I, too, had Hodgkin's Disease, but went through little trauma compared to him. His story of how he kept himself sane, and how his family and friends rallied to him are a must-read for anyone approaching critical illness. He kept his sense of humor and wonder even at the worst of times. He didn't let the disease become his life. And now, through this book and his work at the University of Arizona, he teaches by example how to integrate this kind of experience into your life. I was frankly crying through several parts of the book, and then would just as quickly belly laugh. It's a rollercoaster, made better in that you know that he survived to write this account.

Before I read this book, it wasn't even clear to me that "trilobite" literally meant "three lobes." This lovely species (or set of species?) had a simple and long-lasting body type that reveals the nature of the planet over geological time. Fortey's excitement about the subject is contagious: I can now name not only the glabella (the head sac containing the brain and stomach), but I also can explain why the trilobite's eyes are unique and how they work.

This book is terrific for anyone interested in understanding more about how the planet formed and species evolved, and I'm sure a teenager with a scientific bent would enjoy the straightforward tone and lack of pretension. Trilobite! has spurred me to read more about science, including Fortey's overview of all of existence, called "Life."

Fortey pulls off a tour de force, compressing billions of years of development into quickly read pages. His explanations are great for the layman (such as myself) who lacks the biological underpinnings to fully understand the transformative process. I learned the context into which life grew and expanded, and I feel as if I gained quite a lot of insight into the periodic throes of disaster and explosion that have characterized the history of life.

My only real criticism is his treatment of the latest stages of life, which appear to be quite cursory compared to his true areas of interest: trilobites and other sea creatures. However, I forgive him this: it's hard to talk about human evolution concisely, but I need to read more about that area.

I also recommend Fortey's "Trilobite" as a great title, even if you knew nothing about the creatures. I didn't even know their name was literal: three lobes.

Unfortunately, as in the way of many series of books, the first was transcendent, unique, and beautiful. The second explored the universe more, but lacked the true gorgeousness of the first. The third is just odd and dull with a lot of meaningless detail and inexplicably bad dialogue. If you liked the first - stop there. I wish I had.

I've never been a big fan of installing technology in schools for the sake of installing them, but I couldn't articulate my argument against the kind of wholesale "spend money on computers and the Internet" campaigns now going on. My thought was that unless you provide training, resources, and real software, computers are no better than word processors or video games. There's no learning involved except if you're learning to do tech support.

Stoll's anecdotes and statistics lend credence to the notion that a lot of good education (and teachers and programs) are cut to support an idea that's a sop to the real ideas of education. He carefully explores and refutes most of the claims of the pro-technology crowd, while giving good voice to the reasonable and correct uses of computers in the classroom.

The point is not that kids shouldn't use computers, but that computers should always be tools to assist in learning. That learning can be hard, challenging and rewarding - and that most computer software is sold as simply "a fun way to learn," as if other ways are somehow bad.

No matter what your take on the issue, read this book. It should form the authoritative basis for the ongoing discussion.

The Golden Compass is stunning - it's full of unique ideas and an incredible landscape. It hardly feels like magic, and science of a sort underlays most of the ideas in the book. But it's thrilling and full of rich, deep, funny characters who continually step out of the page and into three dimensionality. It makes Harry Potter seem positively workaday, but, on more reflection, Potter and Lyra (the star of this book) are two sides of a coin. They're both headstrong, but Harry has to fight his battle against ultimate evil inside a framework. Lyra's world is falling apart and so rules have been broken already - she has to use all means at her quite extensive disposal.