Craig Maloney writes the review below of Linux Game Programming. From the sound of it, there may be a considerable market need for more books on programming the fun stuff for GNU/Linux. This one may even suit your needs, but earns some harsh words from Craig.

Reader Haaz contributed this review of Biohazard. Since my typical airport reading consists of lurid thrillers about either medical examiners in murder-prone counties or terrorists with nasty bioweapons stolen from secret labs in Uzbekistan, this sounds like it might be a bit too scary. In the case of bioagents, being forewarned is only partly the same as being forearmed.

Craig Maloney contributed this review of the Perl CD Bookshelf 2.0, which he calls "the most portable way to get five Perl books from here to there." Like others in the same series, this package from O'Reilly assembles several related titles onto a single, searchable disk to save endless page-thumbing, but not without a few glitches.

Craig Maloney wrote this review of a book intended to remove some of the confusion from the powerful, free 3D modelling program Blender. Blender is fun to play with, and has been used to create some amazing 3D graphics, but it's not exactly intuitive. Just figuring out what some of the major buttons do was a triumph for me, but I haven't touched it in a few years -- I'd like to try Blender again, but with a book like this one at the ready to supplement the user interface.

Danny Yee wrote this review of a classic work (from way back in 1968) from one of the classic science fiction authors, Roger Zelazny. A third of a century later, Danny seems to think it holds up pretty well.

Despite the title, this book will be helpful to anyone consulting in a computer-related field -- custom programming, network design or any of several related types of consulting. An assortment of helpful advice from someone who's done it successfully, intended to give you the knowledge you need to start a profitable consulting business.

Andy Murren contributed this review of Richard Blum's Postfix. Powering mail delivery may not be as sexy as programming in exotic new languages, but it sure is important -- Andy gives you the scoop here on how well Postfix (and Postfix) do at the task.

Danny Yee popped up this review from down under of the provacatively titled Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters: What I Learned in Ten Years as a Microsoft Programmer . This sounds like a fun read, but not without flaws.

Credit card numbers? Personal correspondence? Medical information? If you've ever sent anything you'd like kept private over the profligate and global Internet, be grateful there are good guys devoted to keeping private information private. The long-suffering RantyDave reviews here for your learning pleasure Eric Rescorla's SSL and TLS: Designing and Building Secure Systems; readers should also check out the amazingly prolific Danny Yee's review of the same book. Both reviewers indicate that this is a book whose learning curve is worth tackling.

Linus Torvalds (and David Diamond) wrote this book; chromatic wrote the review below. It may be hard to say much new about Linus and the results of his 1991 inspiration to loose his kernel on the world, but this book is historically informative, with copyrighted Torvalds humor to boot (I snorted in parts) and fun facts about growing up in Finland. And for a multimedia extravaganza, you can even listen to some conversation between Linus and co-author David Diamond.

Bill Camarda contributed this review of Hack Attacks Revealed. A healthy dose of paranoia comes in handy sometimes -- and anyone with a broadband connection of any kind has reason to double the dose. And Yes, this book denies the existence of neither *NIX nor Windows systems.

I've been fan of Neil Gaiman's work for a long time, and so it was with gleeful abandon that I got an advance copy of his latest work, American Gods. Being an advance copy, there were sections that may receive a bit of editing, but it seemed that this was just about the final form of the book. I mentioned being a fan of Gaiman's work for a long time for a reason -- I may be a bit fanboyish. That's not to say that there were not a couple problems with it -- but those were very minor issues compared with the overall strength of the book. Those who have read Gaiman's work before -- from Sandman to Good Omens (with Terry Prachett) and Neverwhere -- are familar with his knowledge of mythology and the idea that stories are extremely powerful. For those who didn't read it, well, there you go. Mythology and the Old Stories are important and powerful. With that foundation in place, on we go.

howardjp writes: "Ian Stewart has penned a fabulous sequel to Edwin A. Abbot's classic geometric classic, Flatland. Mr. Stewart's sequel, Flatterland, discusses the geometric advances over the preceding one hundred years and how these advances have applied in the real world. From the simplest plane geometry to passing through a wormhole, Flatterland describes the mathematics in simple and easily digestible terms." Read the rest of James' review below.

Reader Brian Donovan contributed the review below of O'Reilly & Associates' ActionScript: The Definitive Guide, which he says is a "must have" for anyone working on Web animation with Flash. Offered under the condition that you please not make your site utterly dependent on Flash, of course;)

Many of you have probably read books from Terry Prachett's Discworld series before; if you haven't, or if you missed out on Good Omens , one of the funniest books ever, you should begin to rectify your mistakes. I've reviewed Prachett's most recent installment in the long-running Discworld series, Thief of Time.

People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made. Law professor and copyright expert Jessica Litman takes a hard look at the process which makes copyright law, and most readers will likely finish her new book, Digital Copyright, with their respect for the law substantially lessened. This is the book for everyone who has ever gotten fed up with IANAL posts and wanted answers that were a bit more informed, everyone who's gotten tired of soundbite analysis of Napster and overheated mailing list discussions. If you're looking for one book to help you understand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the past and future of copyright law, this is it.

Reader Torulf contributed the below review of Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface .Though the book does not spend much time on Open Source software, it emphasizes ideas that every programmer probably ought to bear in mind -- at least if they wants hisprograms to have users. (And yes, he takes explicit exception to some UNIX truisms.)

jsled contributed the below review of the fascinating Telecosm, a bound to stretch some perceptions of the world and the place that communication bandwidth plays in how we live in it. Telecosm explores the implications of information transfer as an abundant resource and no longer the bottleneck it once was, and raises the question of What's Next.

Iain Banks doesn't just write science fiction; he's also a fine writer of other sorts of novels. The Business is his recent novel about a semi-sinister keiretsu which is large, rich, powerful, invisible and nameless. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of The Business is their method for promoting talent: you get promoted to the next level of The Business when your peers agree that they want you leading them.

Duncan Lawie rides again with this review of the audaciously titled (and written) new book from Paul McAuley, The Secret of Life. It's another entry on the bookshelf of Science Fiction works designed to provoke thought, not merely entertain.