You might be forgiven for thinking that the title sounds a bit off-putting, and it's certainly more heavyweight than the last book published by Interface Publications. But, lots of you are probably getting fed up with simple type-'em-in-and-run-'em books and would welcome something a bit more ambitious that actually attempts to teach you something as well as give you a few good games to play at the end of the day. Right?

Well, this book could fit the bill quite nicely. As the title says, it's all about computer simulations and how to write them well. The author is another famous name from the Interface stable, Tim Hartnell, and he has produced here a book that is a little bit different and exciting.

The book contains listings for eighteen simulation programs. They were originally written on an IBM PC in a common subset of Microsoft Basic and it is claimed that they will run with minimal changes on any machine fitted with Basic.

I am always a bit dubious about such claims, but since this book is clearly not aimed at beginners, the publishers expect their readers to have enough experience to be able to cope with the conversions. As it is, listings are given for the Amstrad and BBC Micros in the main part of the book, with code for the Spectrum (+) and Commodore 64 at the end.

Tim Hartnell starts by spending several chapters exploring the nature of simulations: how they came to be used in pilot training, for example, and their particular characteristics.

Then, as different aspects are explored and explained, they are demonstrated in example programs.

The selection is quite varied. You can try landing a temperamental plane (again!) or playing the stock market, or even running the United States' economy. There are some interesting routines involving programming a robot using Logo-style commands and a challenging computer chess game. Some of them are quite amusing too - if you are playing at being President of the United States, for example, you might find yourself booted out of office having broken all records for increasing the inflation rate, the budget deficit and the birth rate... all in one go!

This is a hefty book at 366 pages, and if I said the last book was good value, this one is even better. Anyone looking for something a bit different that will be more interesting and teach you something new and get away from the tired old arcade collections should look for this on the bookshelves.