Rating: 
Summary: Complete coverage, tough read
Review: As the title states Mastering RMI does contain all the information necessary to master the subject of RMI. However, the explainations are not as clear as they could be. And, I found the pictoral diagrams to be of little value. If you are looking for a book which simply gives you what you need to use RMI you may be dissapointed. This book provides COMPLETE coverage, including the underpinnings of the technology. While this may be interesting reading it tends to divert attention and time away from the practical aspects of RMI. If your one of those programmers that has the time and desire to explore all the nitty-gritty details of the subject, regardless of their immediate benefit, than you will probably find this book a good read. Otherwise, if you just want to get up-and-running with RMI their are simpler and quicker routes you can take.I hope this helpes :)
Rating: 
Summary: Amateurish and badly edited
Review: I agree with all the negative reviews already posted, but I was so frustrated with this book I had to add another voice of criticism. The book was obviously a manuscript dump with no editing that I could detect. Why Wiley thinks they can charge this amount for no work at all is beyond me. It is littered with grammatical errors, incomprehensible sentences, and annoying repetition. In short, it is nearly unreadable. To add insult to injury, there are countless summaries which condescend to tell the reader that she should now have a good understanding of the covered material, and can move on. Don't be so sure you will have a good understanding. I did not, and I've been using RMI for some time. As others have stated, the examples are contrived, and not very well written. There is very little here of use for those developing large-scale distributed systems. Save your money (considerable money, in this case) and stick to Sun's website.
Rating:
Summary: Amateurish and badly edited
Review: I agree with all the negative reviews already posted, but I was so frustrated with this book I had to add another voice of criticism. The book was obviously a manuscript dump with no editing that I could detect. Why Wiley thinks they can charge this amount for no work at all is beyond me. It is littered with grammatical errors, incomprehensible sentences, and annoying repetition. In short, it is nearly unreadable. To add insult to injury, there are countless summaries which condescend to tell the reader that she should now have a good understanding of the covered material, and can move on. Don't be so sure you will have a good understanding. I did not, and I've been using RMI for some time. As others have stated, the examples are contrived, and not very well written. There is very little here of use for those developing large-scale distributed systems. Save your money (considerable money, in this case) and stick to Sun's website.
Rating: 
Summary: frustrating
Review: I bought this book for Rickard Oberg's reputation, which cost me [amount]. When I completed reading the book, I hardly believe the author is Richard Oberg. Most of books I read about RMI are better written than this book. The chapters about EJB and JINI are even worse. All the book is about the introduction of RMI and EJB and JINI....
Rating:
Summary: Mastering RMI
Review: I bought this book for Rickard Oberg's reputation, which cost me [amount]. When I completed reading the book, I hardly believe the author is Richard Oberg. Most of books I read about RMI are better written than this book. The chapters about EJB and JINI are even worse. All the book is about the introduction of RMI and EJB and JINI....
Rating: 
Summary: It answered most questions on RMI mailing List
Review: I have been on RMI mailing list for half a year. This book clearly explained most of the frequently asked questions on the list. I think by reading first half the book, I understood RMI better than the half year I spent on RMI mailing list.I agree that some examples were not given enough explaination, especially non-RMI related codes. E.g, the IdentySocket
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Rating:
Summary: Save your money - not recommended
Review: I just got this book and wasted [price]. I only has 142 pages on RMI and the remainder is rehashed code to build a chat application, EJB example, etc. He spends more time on describing his designs than on RMI. I finished the book the first day I got it. Although, I skipped the long summaries after every chapter. If you subtract the 31 pages of introduction to client/server architecture, the redundant "tips" and, the summaries this "book" will come in under 100 pages. The few interesting points he makes, he refers later chapters for the details and some of his descriptions are so convoluted that I had to go back to my own code to make sure that I knew what was happening. This is not a book for beginners. You should only read it if you fully understand RMI and then why buy. There are better descriptions of RMI on the web.
Rating:
Summary: A good tutorial for RMI, but...
Review: I purchased this book after doing some research into RMI via the internet to give me a more solid understanding of RMI, which it did. However, when applying my acquired knowledge to a real-world application, I found that I was missing a HUGE piece of the RMI puzzle. RMI over the INTRAnet is a wonderful thing; however, when trying to implmenent RMI over the INTERnet, and the RMI server is behind a firewall, you are in for a painful migraine. This is a show-stopper for my employers, I wish that the book mentioned something about RMI and firewalls. There are workarounds for the firewall, but they are by no means easy and you will not find them in this book.
Rating:
Summary: frustrating
Review: I think I'm giving up on this book, and looking for another. For a beginner, the theory is long winded, but not very practical. And especially frustrating for a beginner, the examples and their explanations are confusing. If you use this to learn RMI - you'll be teaching yourself all the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes it easy to understand - good teacher
Review: I totally disagree with the negative reviews on Öbergs book. I always admire authors who makes things easíer to understand, not making them seem more intelligent than they really are. A good teacher is one who can make things understandable, not the opposite. If you have read 3-5 RMI books before this one you may get disappointed as some of the other reviewers. It's an excellent intoduction to RMI, but don't expect to find some magical new/hidden, features of RMI here. Maybe the title should have instead been "An Introduction to RMI with Lots of Good Explanations." If you need an introduction to RMI, where you don't have to read a lot "between the lines", then this book is a good choice. I've stopped searching the internet for explanations about RMI after I got this book. There are lot's of hello world RMI introductions out there on the web, but Öbergs book goes far beyond them all. A good introduction.
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