Rating: 
Summary: If you buy one SQL Server book, buy this one
Review: I bought this book not knowing what to expect. The title seemed a little pretentious to me. Well, I was wrong. This is a _great_ book -- one of the best computer books I've ever read. The coverage of Transact-SQL is so deep that I seem to glean something new each time I pick up the book. I've been working with MS SQL since 4.2, and I thought I knew all the in's and out's of the language. I was wrong about that, too. The book showed me just how little I knew.The chapter on undocumented T-SQL alone is worth the cost of the book and taught me loads I didn't know. All those hidden DBCCs, trace flags, and undocumented stored procedures were fun to discover and will definitely come in handy. Without reservation, I can recommend this book to anyone looking for the ultimate tome on SQL Server's Transact-SQL.
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Summary: A Transact-SQL tour de force!
Review: Henderson has hit one over the fence with this one. I wish I'd had this book about five years ago when I started coding in Transact-SQL. Want to know how to perform OLE Automation from T-SQL? Get this book. Need to compute the financial median of a million value set with a SELECT statement? Get this book. Want to know all there is to know about T-SQL performance and tuning? This one's for you. Need to know all the idiosynchrasies of transactions and cursors? Look no further. This is exactly the book I've been hoping to find for years. It's far better than any other T-SQL book out there. It's well written, full of valuable example code, and authored by someone who's obviously a guru in his own right.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Transact SQL Books ever
Review: This is one of the best Transact SQL books out in the market. I am on the first chapter and Mr. Henderson is already talking about topics that other books have in Chapter 21 or not at all. For e.g., He writes why a where clause in a join may give incorrect resultset if you use the old join syntax. On the other hand this should not be the first book for a SQL newbie. S/he will probably not be able to follow. I mean if you don't know what a join is you would not gain from reading about the nuances. The author points out in the preface that it was his goal to not use filler material and he has succeded in that. This book has a very high density of good information and requires and repays careful rereading. I would highly recommend this book. It will also help to have Chris Date's Guide to SQL Standard handy to complement.
Rating:
Summary: Run, don't walk, and get this book!
Review: This is the best SQL Server-related book I have ever read. It beats the other Transact-SQL books hands-down. Two of my favorite things about it are its in-depth coverage of row-positioning problems such as statistical calculations and its exhaustive listing of undocumented Transact-SQL syntax. These alone make this a must-have for any serious SQL Server developer. This book is a future classic. It goes on my shelf between Soukup's Inside SQL Server and Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties.
Rating:
Summary: Just the book I wanted
Review: I have been working with SQL (the language)for years and SQL Server for about two years. This book is filled with SQL code. I picked up several tricks in just the first 8 chapters. I enjoy the style and the absence of screenshots of Query Analyzer. Mr. Henderson is good at explaining why the code is written and when you would want to write this type of SQL statements. I recommend this book for anyone with some experience in SQL and some frustration with SQL Server.
Rating: 
Summary: A very fine book!
Review: This is a very fine book, and should be read cover-to-cover. It is not a reference book or a beginner's book but I think anyone can gain from reading it.
I would like to comment on some of the other reviews which "gush" with what reads like professionally-prepared reviews. I am very suspicious of such reviews and you should be too!
Rating:
Summary: Somber and with 0 fluff like Well-Tempered Clavier.
Review: This is one of the books that after reading even couple of chapters you feel obligated to leave a feadback on.
This is the apotheosis of techinical writing. Serios, allways on the topic, never condesending or trying to insult your inteligence.
It is truely well-tempered writing; you go from page to page in somber and attentive procession.
This book should be included in ISO standards as a stick for measuing other technical writing.
If you need a SQL book that is a little more mellow, but still a good reading, consider Vieira's book.
If you are still confused why 4 stars, it is because I hate perfection and also am envious of the guy's excelence.
Rating:
Summary: Invaluable material on non-trivial SQL
Review: This book gives invaluable insights into solving the non-trivial problems that we encounter in SQL that few books cover. An example is the books coverage of hierarchies. This type of data structure appears reasonably often in practice, but few books or courses cover querying hierarchies in SQL in an efficient manner. This book gives them the respect they deserve.
Other sticky topics include the ins and out of the SELECT statement, which is covered in depth. As well as an excellent section on triggers and transactions.
The transactions chapter is interesting because it is the only time the book goes into an introductory mode. Most of the book is at the expert level. No time is spent introducing the language or it's syntax. But the transaction chapter does spend some time on the basics.
There are some downsides. Some chapters are completely dominated by code with little explanatory text or annotations. And the book could have benefited from illustrations, any at all.
But the value of the book is in it's ability to pass on guru level techniques that will save you weeks of pain in routing out and fixing performance trouble spots. It's in this way that the book is worth every penny to the working SQL Server DBA or Engineer.
Rating: 
Summary: Old version of sql coverage
Review: this is old code adn all command line code. It's not usable in the 2004 world of writing code and using sql server.
I noticed the reviewers seem to think any other opinion needs admonished for it, but I'll take my chances. there are dozens of other more upt to date titles that would serve you much much better. This is from 1999 and writes about earlier versions of sql and methods not employed in any real shop. The reviewers must be tinkering at home since like many others have found, the code in here will blow a production implementation, even if done as specified. Go to to the author's website for an example of his skills and it will give you a new perspspective on his books.
When writing my review this moring the last one was a 3 star, and then 2 appeared like lightening. Then the 3 star which had few if any votes had over 50 not helpful votes in just a minutes time. Unbelievable. And all other good reviews got over 50 added to each one. This seal it for me. This is a charlatans work.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for anyone using Sql Server
Review: I have over ten years of experience in the database profession. Henderson's books are the best I have seen for any dbms. I bought all three of them around Christmas time and have been poring over them since then. This book taught me how to write industrial strength programs for Sql Server. Who would have thought that the query language had this much power? The chapters on set operations, hiearchys and arrays showed me dozens of different ways of solving problems that I would have previously thought were unsolvable without pulling the data back to the client and working with it there. Being able to do all these things on the server makes applications simpler and faster. The money I paid for this and Henderson's other books is the best money I have spent on computer books in a long, long time. Very highly recommended.
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