Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 21:38:18 EST From: "Rob Slade, Ed. DECrypt & ComNet, VARUG rep, 604-984-4067" Subject: "Guide to the Macintosh Underground" by LeVitus/Fraase BKMACUND.RVW 940804 Hayden Books 201 West 103rd St. Indianapolis, IN 46290 317-581-3718 fax: 317-581-4669 hayden@hayden.com haydenbks@aol.com 76350.3014@compuserve.com "Guide to the Macintosh Underground", LeVitus/Fraase, 1993, 0-672-48549-4, U$19.95/C$26.95 76004.2076@compuserve.com levitus@aol.com mfraase@farces.com According to the authors, this is a "slightly twisted collection of essays about the Macintosh experience". Included are chapters on early history (of Mac development), why IBM sucks, how multimedia almost killed the Mac, customization, pranks, various (mostly bad) software, how to go to (one particular) computer show, cyberspace, virtual sex (pornography), and Bill Gates. Buried within are some nuggets of computer history and anecdotes, but relatively few. The material is not universally Mac oriented (the cyberspace chapter has almost no Mac referents at all), but the perspective is fanatic. Unconstrained by facts, logic or an enormous computer realm beyond Apple, IBM and Microsoft, the system bashing breaks out in some odd places. The "essays" don't really present "Mac Culture": basically, the whole book is rather self- indulgent. The presentation is hideous. Printed in purple and orange, the bewildering range of fonts, layouts and background graphics makes it extremely hard to read. What appear to be outquotes and sidebars are, sometimes, outquotes and sidebars--but at other times, are necessary parts of the narrative thread. Miss them, and you become lost in the verbiage. With the mentions of the Merry Pranksters and the self-characterization of "slightly twisted", it may be that the authors think they are producing a psychedelic experience. They aren't. They are quite taken with Alain Rossman's quote that, "When it comes to paradigms ... shifts happen," but, when it comes to books, a little more discipline is what's happening. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKMACUND.RVW 940804 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag