Slashdot reader rw2 (aka Rich Wellner) writes: "I was excited about this book because rarely does one come out that so directly applies to what I do day to day. I work at a national research lab, help out at a web hosting facility and run poliglut in my spare time. So, I'm used to dealing with the cleanup that occurs after a successful attack." The book is O'Reilly's updated Web Security, Privacy and Commerce. Read on for more of Rich's take on it.

jeffy124 submitted to us his review of World War 3.0 Microsoft and Its Enemies. For those of you who just can't get enough of the seemingly endless saga of legal move and countermove, this book follows this case from the beginning. It's about eight months out of date now, but has decent background.

Richard Jones writes: "In my opinion, the most difficult aspect of writing a good 3D game is coding complex physics. If you can take away all the flashy graphics, texture maps, light and shadows from a game, and it's still at least 75% as playable and addictive, then you have an excellent game. But too many programmers seem to be ready to concentrate on the graphics, neglecting the underlying physics which make the game playable. If you compare, say, Re-volt with its fabulously detailed models of remote-controlled cars, and Carmageddon which on the N64 at least has sucky physics, well I know which one I'm still playing." He's contributed his review (below) of a book intended to help game programmers make games that aren't sucky.

Danny Yee writes with the perfect background reading (once you've finished the Tolkein books, of course) before checking out the new LoTR movie: "For something completely different, reviews of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf. Essential background reading for serious Tolkien fanatics! You might also want to check out my other medieval literature reviews."

Lois McMaster Bujold is known for her series of space opera novels about Miles Vorkosigan, a crippled but intelligent protagonist who has been, variously, a military officer, a secret agent, commander of a mercenary fleet, diplomat... the list goes on. The Curse of Chalion is, as far as I know, her first fantasy novel. [A reader points out that it isn't.] The crippled but intelligent protagonist is a military officer who gets employed as a diplomat, secret agent, secretary... you get the idea. A fun read, the plot isn't perfect but it's still a cut above most fantasy novels these days. At the very least, it isn't a rehash of the "small company has to get [item] to destroy [dark lord]" plot.

mrgrumpy contributes this review of a book which, despite the interesting subject matter, he says comes with some forgiveable but hard-to-ignore shortcomings. Emergence still sounds like an interesting read and broad introduction to the theories and subject matter at hand, but read on for more of his take on the book.

Michael Simmons contributed this review of what he claims is the best of the very few books out there for folks who want to learn Cocoa programming. The field is so small, in fact, that he can give a nutshell review along the way of the only other one he's encountered, O'Reilly's Learning Cocoa. Update: 12/13 15:45 GMT by T : Please note: Simmons is thanked in the acknowledgements of Hillegass' book. He explains: "I went to the Big Nerd Ranch, where the author teaches an amazing Cocoa course. While there, I received a pre-release copy of the book (it's the coursebook, actually.) I had found a bunch of errors and typos, and helped Aaron correct those errors and inconsistencies, so I'm guessing he is thanking me for my contributions to quality." Just to clear that up!

Duncan Lawie returns from the wilderness with another review drawn from the world of classic science fiction. Probably a romp through a good used bookstore (or a good library) may be a more satisfying way to find some of Le Guin's works than ordering online, but it is available in reissue (linked below).

Lawrence Lessig's new book, The Future of Ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world , is strongly related to his previous book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace . In Code, Lessig pursued his thesis that the computer code behind all online activities functioned as a set of laws, and the impact that that has on regulation of the online world. In Ideas, Lessig explores a related concept that was hammered on heavily during the Microsoft anti-trust cases -- that holders of intellectual property (copyrights and patents) will squelch freedom and innovation online.

Beyond Contact is the definitive guide to human efforts at contacting alien civilizations. Sure, there have been various works that suggest the best way to make contact is to stand out in a cornfield on a dark night, but if you believe hard work and science (and maybe a *cough* data-crunching PCI card) is the way to go, this book will tell you everything you need to know. The author has been interviewed before; that will give you a starting point.

Danny Yee writes: "Last year I reviewed Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability . Read on for my review of his latest book, Homepage Usability." This might make you want to go and revise your own home page.

Cliff Lampe contributed this review. "Derek Powazek is the designer of both fray.com and kvetch.com, fairly active web "communities" from which he spun off a consulting career, helping others to design online interactions. Being a consultant, he is consitutionally required to write a book. Powazek's book, "Design for Community: the art of connecting real people in virtual places", is an attempt to advise people on adding community features to their websites. As such, the intended readers of this book are people who are considering taking a static website and adding interactive features to it. That is, making online communities. Powazek recognizes the pitfalls of the word "community" in relation to some of these online interactions, but seems to settle on it as a handy short hand for the series of user-generated, self-organizing, deliberative, effective etc. features that have fallen under the general aegis of "online communities". For Powazek, it's enough to define community as users interacting directly on a site." Read on for the rest of Cliff's review.

For all the Terry Pratchett fans reading mblase contributed this review of the illustrated The Last Hero, writing: "There are only two things a Discworld fan can think when encountering an illustrated Discworld novel. He'll either love it for giving him a concrete visual idea of his favorite people, places and things, or he'll hate it for the very same reason. You probably already know which type you are." Read on for the rest of his review. Update: 11/19 21:30 GMT by T : Note: The reference to Jack Kirby should have been to Josh Kirby instead; apologies.

Reader Steve McLaughlin writes with this review: "'Built to Last' was one of the most significant business books of the nineties, but the book didn't leave much hope for companies that got off to a less-than-ideal start. What if your company wasn't lucky enough to be founded by the likes of David Packard, Sam Walton, or George Merck? Jim Collins throws these businesses a life raft in his new book 'Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't'. Read on for the rest of Steve's take on the book.

Stella Daily writes: "Had Jonathan Tucker's Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox been released just a few months ago, it might have been of interest only to a few outside of the world of epidemiology, but now that anthrax scares have reawakened public interest in biowarfare, it's hardly surprising that Scourge has been flying off the shelves." Read on for the rest of her review of this sobering non-fiction technothriller.

Adam Jenkins contributes this review of The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer, the newly re-named and republished telling of Babbage's insights and struggles in creating a steam-powered calculating machine, and the modern efforts to bring his work to fruition.

Steve MacLaughlin writes with this review. Any book that points out bluntly that most web sites suck already has me nodding, but I wish the authors would have included all the details, instead of protecting the guilty by anonymizing individual failure stories.

Thank reader mblumber for this review of Scott Adams's God's Debris, newly republished in hardcover after starting out life a few years ago as an e-book. For those who've never seen Adam's serious side, this is an interesting introduction.

code_rage contributed this review of The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur. Monk is a Zen-like guide to entrepreneurship and life and Silicon Valley, and sounds like interesting reading.

Craig Maloney contributed this review, because you can't always read a 600-page, densely written technical manual without a little something to leaven the bread.