Rating: 

of a cast of characters who work at or are somehow involved

with Columbia Internet, a fictional Internet Service Provider.

This is the third of four (so far) book compilations

of the User Friendly comic strip.

What did you expect from the book?

I was expecting still another compilation of User Friendly strips.

I was expecting lots of strips and lots of laughs.

I was also expecting much evil.

Did you get what you expected?

Yep, lots of User Friendly strips and a lot of good laughs.

And there's a healthy dose of evil too.

For example:

* Pitr strives to become "SUPER ADMINISTRATOR OF ALL BORG FUNCTION".

* Amazon tries to patent the letter "a", ".com", etc.

* The FBI renames "CARNIVORE" as "CARNY"

and makes it available in software stores.

* AOL produces a CD that when played backwards says

"DOMINATE!! DOMINATE!! EAT YOUR YOUNG AND AGGREGATE."

And the evilest creature of all, the Mirosoft paperclip thingy,

also makes an appearance.

What else did you especially like?

Well, there were lots of really fun things including:

* the man/woman interations (or should I say geek/woman)

between A.J. and Miranda.

* the hilarious tech support questions

and also the responses by Mike and others.

* the similar minimalistic AI programs by Sid and Pitr.

* Sid's caustic old timer humor.

You can read more about A.J., Miranda, Mike and Sid

in the UF character gallery.

What was disappointing?

Illiad didn't show the source for the AI programs.

He didn't even say what language they were written in.

I would have enjoyed more evil

and a greater presence of the most evil of the UF characters.

Who's the book for?

The book is appropriate for geeks

and people interested in learning about geeks and geek culture.

(I know I said that in an earlier review,

but, hey, that's still what I think.)

C.F. GUVF OBBX VF JNL XBBY!