From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Note that reviewers such as myself are allowed only an ebook version and in this case only a 16 page sample of the actual book, so it's hard to make a good judgment from this. It's not like it's a work of fiction where you can read a few pages and tell pretty quickly if the book is well-written or a piece of trash, so this review is only of the sample I received, of which only five pages were the actual book, the rest being introductory preface, contents, etc. So not much of a sample!
The second problem with getting only the ebook version is that you can't comment on the print version, nor can I say if this is ever going to be released as an ebook. I suspect not, but that's just an opinion. The problem with the ebook is that the publisher made the dire mistake of releasing it in Kindle format. I have said this many times and I say it again: unless your book is plain vanilla text (without even so much as dropcaps) it's a grave mistake to put it into Kindle format because Amazon's crappy Kindle process will, nine times out of ten, reduce it to kindling. In the Kindle version, viewed on an a standard iPad, it trashed pictures, slicing and dicing and Julienning them turning the book into a disordered jumble. The book looked much better in Blue Fire Reader and in Adobe Digital Editions.
The pictures, when presented properly, were beautiful to look at and the supporting text informative. Based on this sample alone, the book appears to be a worthy read.
