Unfortunately this book is sort of verging on abandonware - it's been out of print for a while, the publisher has folded and been bought out by someone else, and the author doesn't maintain the website any more... The wayback machine has the author's website saved, so you can still get the code examples from here.

Kind of a shame, since thanks to Mickey Mouse it'll be lost to copyright limbo for the rest of any of our lifetimes.

I don't know much about this book specifically, but when I follow that Amazon link it's still setting for $40+ and for a book from 2006 that strikes me as a really bad deal.

I didn't read this either but I have opposite opinion. For a ten years old book on subject that tends to outdate quickly the fact that price is still around $40 means that this book may has valuable content regardless of unsupported technology.

Also depending where do you live, that $40 may buy you a good dinner and few drinks. A price I would definitely risk if the subjects seems interesting. Even if at the end I wouldn't be able to finish the book's project exactly as described or even at all.

Deleted reply: I misread the OP because the title of the thread.

To be honest, I'm thinking of buying it myself, from what I've read in the responses. I don't intend to ever build any game using DX, or using any platform specific code/lib, but the fact that it involves creating an RTS and terrain generation, and is being well spoken about, has got my mouth watering. I'm all for interesting reads on concepts I feel attracted to. :)

For me, specifically, I think it might be a good source of further knowledge that I might end up translating/incorporating into my actual projects (I don't think I'll be attempting to develop an RTS anytime soon). For you, well, I don't know. You could follow along using the old tools, and it should still work on any windows machine (that's my guess).

One thing to keep in mind is that once you're done you'll want to step up to more up-to-date technology, and that will involve further reading and learning, kind of like starting over, in a way. Might still be a lot easier than to follow along with the book while trying to translate it to its modern counterparts, which, as far as I know, involves not just using different keywords, but writing different code in a different mindset for different specific reasons.

Or you could still buy the book and read it on the side, as you focus on something else with some other book. To be honest, I can't really say what would be the best option, since the most important thing is that you're approaching the subject in a way that you really enjoy and keeps moving you forward. What I think I can say is that, from what it seems, you'll probably not be sorry to have bought it, regardless.

I bought mine on Amazon a few years back, of course I bought mine non-used, so it was a tad expensive considering(wanted to make sure I got the following CD).

Definitively a recommended read in my opinion