As the first in a series of book reviews, I'm going to take a closer look at the Second Life - Official Guide (with cd-rom). I think most of you have heard this, it's advertised at the front page of the SL website.Now, first of all I should say that this is a book which has mainly been written for SL beginners. And for that purpose, it's a perfect book. I don't consider myself a beginner (with over 3 months experience), but I must admit that I learned some great things from this book.Part one of this book deals with how to start with SL and it has about 30 pages of places, with short descriptions, that could be seen as SL tourist attractions. The graphics of this book are really pretty and the descriptions are very clear. This first part also is nice reading material if you want to know more about the history of SL and some more background info.Part two is full of more practical info, like how to change your appearance, the library, the inventory, building and it's a good tutorial to get you started with LSL, the scripting language of Second Life.Part three is a mixture of showing you what you can be and do in SL. It tells you about how to make money, how to aquire fame in SL, but also gives you more background info. Especially this part is full of short interviews with SL residents, telling about their experiences. And there are a few appendices, like a glossary, something about real life education in second life, and some info about menu commands and functions. Now, is this the ultimate bible for Second Life? I don't think so. As I said, it's a starters guide and as such it's a great book. But for those who want to go more in-depth about certain subjects, you really oughtta check out the forementioned website and especially the SL Knowledge Base.About the cd-rom: I mentioned it briefly, but this book comes with a cd-rom. And that is great !!! This might sound a bit cynical maybe, but I mean it. On the cd there's quite some extra info and material, like textures and templates, animation creation software, some examples, loads of other info for scripters and builders, Second Life videos and even a code for access to exclusive in-world content.A note of warning:This book assumes that you're working on a Windows based computer. That means that all the keypresses and mouse clicks mentioned in this book are specific for this kind of computer. If you own a Mac, you will notice that things will not always be as described in the book. Although this can be frustrating a bit at times, and you might not be able to use the cd-rom, I think that you will still enjoy this book for the information and the stories that are in it. Free chapter:If you want to check out an example of how this book is written and if it's useful to you, check out the downloadable FREE Chapter 6, about the Inventory.Factual info about the book:Full title: "Second Life - The Official Guide" (2007)By: various writers, inside and outside Linden LabsPublisher: Wiley Publishing Inc in Indianapolis, Indiana, USAISBN: 0-470-09608-X / 978-0-470-09608-6No. of pages: 342Order at Amazon.com: US$ 23.09, click here to orderMy opinion:Information value for starters: 5/5Information value for advanced residents: 3/5Graphical quality: 5/5Easy to read: 4.5/5Extra's: 5/5 (the cd-rom)My personal overall rating: 4.5 out of 5Next up:I've just ordered another book about SL: "The unofficial tourists' guide to Second Life". I hope to have this within a couple of days and I will give you a review of this book as soon as possible. By the way, if you search Amazon.com for "Second Life", you will get a lot of hits. A lot of the books mentioned on the first (few) page(s) are about SL, but this site also mentions a lot of books that haven't been published yet. This book is actually one of the first of books about SL and it seems that more are to follow later on in 2007. I can't promise you that I will review them all, but I will see what I can do.
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