I have come to expect great things of Steven Feuerstein, particularly after the Oracle Supplied Packages book he wrote. I found that particular book to be a wonderful resource since I bought it.

I was therefore expecting great things of Steven when I purchased his latest work, "Guide to Oracle8i Features". The content of the book appeared to be right up my alley and indeed I was not disappointed by the range of topics he covered (though I would have preferred more Java depth as others had mentioned and a few other new 8i features that I haven't seen mentioned in detail that I would think applied to PL/SQL such as temporary tables (though he does talk about temporary LOB's) ).

What REALLY disappoints me about the book is that Steven seems to feel that he needs to use it as a platform for his political views. Constantly his political views are expressed in both the code samples he writes and the text associated with those examples. Obviously, I disagree with Steven on a great many of the points he tries to make (is this an odd attempt at being subliminal on his part?), regardless I would never attempt to do what he has done. Technical books are NOT a place for political commentary.

So, in brief, Steve has written a good text that is clouded, heavily in my opinion, with political overtones that distract from the subject at hand. I am also surprised that O'Reilly would allow their published texts to become such a platform for political activism.

Better luck next time Steve, I still have faith in your ability to write good, clean, technical text.

Robert