The ubiquitous Ian Sinclair strikes again! This book arrived one day before press day on this issue, so this assessment will be somewhat less conscientious than it ought, but with Ian Sinclair behind the keys, it's reasonable to assume that a polished job has been performed.

The CPC464 user will be warmed with yet more confidence (if it were needed) that he or she was not saddled with a lemon. Mr Sinclair endears himself immediately with the phrase: "The Amstrad CPC464 computer offers much more for either the home or the business user than any previous machine at a comparable price, more even than many machines at much higher prices." What a nice man.

And then he goes and ruins it all: "When I opened my CPC464 computer I found that several of keytops were loose. If you find that this has happened to yours, don't panic, because most of the keytops simply plug back into place. The exception is the long spacebar. The holes in the brackets attached to the spacebar have to be hooked into the two metal prongs in the slot in which it fits." Scare monger. That particular problem was resolved some while ago at the production stage, and is indicative of the fact that we made considerable efforts to ship early machines to authors like Ian Sinclair to ensure that books would be available soon after the public launch. There's a further piece of heresy about plugs and contacts and wiggling things -you can tell Mr Sinclair has the attributes of TV designer from a previous incarnation!

The book shows enough evidence of CPC464-specific features to convince me that it's not a simple reincarnation in the style of "[insert computer name here] Computing". You cannot EVERY or WEND on a C64, nor can you on a Spectrum or Acorn machine, so congratulations are due on that score!

Apart from overlooking our request for uniformity in presentation conventions (typeface, description of non-printing keys etc.), the rest of the book is an ideal beginner's companion in the style of the other Sinclair books. It's a shame that, like so many other books, the beginner will doubtless fail to observe the difference between the figure 'I' and the lower case letter in listings, (It happens even to CPC464 User readers!), but if we carp long enough in our reviews, maybe the message will gradually seep in.

And if anyone else asks me where to find the " and the on the keyboard. I think I may scream...