Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 12:44:28 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Exploring the Internet" by Malamud BKEXPINT.RVW 940310 Prentice Hall 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "Exploring the InterNet", Malamud, 1993, 0-13-296898-3, U$26.95 carl@malamud.com The naive reader might be forgiven for thinking that this book is about the Internet and how to use it. The author seems to think that this book has something to do with the ITU's initial interest in, and later refusal of, publishing the "Blue Book" of telecommunications standards on the Internet. The phrase, "technical travelogue," gets bandied about as if it had some meaning. (It is interesting that on the fourth or fifth visit to Paris the author is unable to explain to anyone, including his aunt, what the phrase means.) Dan Lynch reports as Malamud's proposal a statement that makes as much sense as anything: "Buy my airplane tickets and I'll try to get into as much trouble as I can. Then, I'll write a book." After reading the cover blurbs, one suspects that if you were to try to design a project antithetical to the aims and workings of the Internet, one couldn't get much closer than a six- month trip circling the globe a few times, dropping in on a number of people engaged in esoteric projects for interviews. It isn't a travelogue, since that would imply some sort of logical plan behind the route travelled or the places visited. It isn't all that technical, except that the majority of people discussed work in technical fields. Some of it has to do with the Internet; much of it doesn't. What it is, is hilarious. While novice users looking for documentation on ftp will be mystified, net gurus, particularly those with some knowledge of the players mentioned, will be laughing their socks off. Even the net-illiterate will get some chuckles out of it -- Malamud has a dry wit and a keen eye for the absurd. I can readily sympathize with his tale of a story killed by a marketing department. I still haven't got the slightest idea what the book is supposed to be *about*, but it's a lot of fun. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKEXPINT.RVW 940310. Distribution per- mitted in TELECOM Digest and associated mailing lists/newsgroups. PAT] Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6