BKNTAFDK.RVW 941220 "The Net After Dark", Wood, 1994, 0-471-10347-0, U$16.95 %A Lamont Wood %C 22 Worchester Road, Rexdale, Ontario M9W 9Z9 %D 1994 %G 0-471-10347-0 %I John Wiley & Sons, Inc. %O U$16.95 800-263-1590 jdemarra@jwiley.com aponnamm@jwiley.com %P 356 %T "The Net After Dark" The largest part of this book lists Usenet newsgroups, Internet mailing lists and a sprinkling of other resources. These are divided into categories of artificial intelligence, multimedia, virtual reality, science fiction, humour, cyberpunk, games, chatting (primarily IRC), sex and UFOs. The other resources may be listings for commercial services (there *is* an artificial intelligence "forum" on CompuServe), the occasional description of a shareware program, and lots of pictures identified as "found on the Internet". How specific. The book does give some general information about the Internet, commercial services and BBSes, but it's pretty vague. For example, the "request" address for the various different types of list processing programs running mailing lists is given, but not the commands necessary to sign on. The material also informs you that FAQs (Frequently Asked Question lists) always start numbering at zero, that the original ELIZA program "was written for the PC in the 1970s" and, sometimes, that Usenet newsgroups are Internet mailing lists, so take it with a grain of salt. Wood has researched some of the resources listed, but most he quite obviously hasn't. There is very little more here than is available from an examination of the .newsrc file or a "list-of-lists". (However, he has clearly devoted much time, study and sacrifice to one topic. The last few pages of the sex chapter describe newsgroup names which imply sexual topics, but discuss serious topics.) And, no, there is no listing for flying toasters. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKNTAFDK.RVW 941220 =================== Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Power users think Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca | 'Your PC is now Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca | Stoned' is part of User p1@CyberStore.ca | the DOS copyright Security Canada V7K 2G6 | line." R. Murnane