Getting More From Your Commodore 64 is another book for beginners. It is a pretty solid work spanning some 300 pages, comprehensive in scope though it falls short in the area of machine code which is described but not introduced - not a serious failing considering the nature of the book.

Most areas are covered with plenty of examples, but all listings are taken from a printer with no amendments (for instance, for cursor controls). At least one appendix gives a list of control codes. I noted the odd mistake here and there throughout the book, but there's nothing critical.

There are a few subjects in the book which remind me of my computer science days - things like linked lists, hashing algorithms, binary trees, stacks and queues. There is also some pretty comprehensive disk treatment, including direct reading and writing sectors. You don't need a PhD to read this book though.

My verdict? Not bad, but it has a lot of competition from similar books - this is the fourth book covering this area that I've reviewed. It seems to be the Pacman syndrome again: everybody has to bring out their own version...

Overall, not bad, but has lots of competition.