Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the paper its printed upon
Review: Total waste of time. There must be an error or goof on every page. Worst code formatting I ever saw. On top of that, its pathetically bad writing. Returned mine Friday.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, definitely has its role
Review: I think it is great that we have a book devoted to the relational parts of the TSQL language, but not diving too much into the technical aspects of TSQL (like system stored procedures etc). This is a programming book, for those who wish to take their TSQL knowledge a step further. Perhaps not as advanced as the title suggets, but a great book for anyone at the intermediate level. Also, the book does cover some more advanced topics like dynamic order by, handling hierarchies etc. One of the books on my recommendation list!
Rating: 
Summary: Not much to get excited about
Review: One thing to recognise - I get excited about good books. Unfortunately, there's nothing really to be excited about with this one. There are far too many errors and other gaffs to make this book worth any real excitement. Instead, it was a bit of a disappointment. I know of both of the authors, having seen them on the newsgroups sporadically, so I went out and purchased their book. That was a mistake, I'm afraid. Better stick to newsgroups, fellows.
Rating:
Summary: Pathetic paperweight
Review: If I could use one word to describe this book it would be: waste. What a waste of paper. What a waste of my time to read it. What a waste of opportunity on part of the authors. This book is absolutely the worst SQL Svr book on the market. Theres nothing in it that wasn't in other books before. It's so terribly written, I had to force myself to finish it. If I could give it zero stars, I would.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible book
Review: Gotta be the worst database book I ever read. Just terrible. Bad writing, silly examples, stupid topics. Total waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: Repeat of the Books Online
Review: This book consists entirely of repeats from the Books Online. It's a real disappointment. All the (useful) info in this one can be found with a couple clicks of the mouse in the BOL.
Rating:
Summary: Too many holes
Review: This book has far too many holes. There's too much stuff left out. We spend all day talking about Itzik's coding style vs. Tom's, but we don't ever talk about statistical functions, star-schema joins, performance tuning, or the myriad other Transact-SQL related topics. Intead, this is a poorly done one-off of magazine articles that weren't that good in the first place...
Rating:
Summary: Total waste of time
Review: I keep getting books that aren't worth the paper they're printed on. They make better doorstops than books. This is another one of those. I don't know which is worse - the useless foray into complex numbers (with Transact-SQL!) or the completed database schemas for pubs and northwind (gee thanks, guys, I accidentally deleted my Books Online ;-(This book should not have been published. There's nothing of any value that you won't find in other books. Save your money for a book that *really* covers advanced Transact-SQL.
Rating:
Summary: returned mine yesterday
Review: Worst hodgepodge of a book I ever read. Probably has an error on every page and some silly commentary on every other. Authors don't know transact-sql or how to write. If you want to learn transact-sql, get a different book - this one ain't gonna get you there.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - a good book to keep for many years
Review: I bought this book after much delay and I think it is excellent. It is tough to find advanced topic books for SQL Server 2000 - even though more and more bokos are being published for SQL Server, more books are not worth having... If you want to learn some more in-depth topics, Tom and Itzik do not dissapoint. More than a rehash of Books Online, this book takes you into several good examples and has a very good section on performance tips. I also love the SQL puzzles....
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