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Rating: 
Summary: Will do the job in the absence of alternatives
Review: Agree with the reviewer about "pompous computer speak", and that the real info could be presented in about 10 pages. I have far too many docs that I need to wade through. The published IEEE standards are always available if you're having insomnia. BUT, with some motivation to get through this book, I was able to accomplish my objective: get a feel for the HLA. The included COTS RTI on the CD helped. Next I'll try the Singhal/Zyda book that another reviewer suggested.
Rating: 
Summary: Recommended, so far
Review: I am at the mid-point of the book and will likely post another review when I am done. So far, I disagree with the negative reviews. The authors give the history and motivation and design decisions behind HLA. They also give many good examples, and together with the CD which contains a implementation of an RTI, allow you to get a really good feel for the important concepts of HLA by running an actual federation. One thing I will be looking for is the impact of the architecture on simulation performance, scalability in practice (as opposed to in theory), and how is HLA likely to evolve over the next couple decades. I don't know yet whether the book is enough for you to create your first federation. If you really have NO background at all in simulation, you will still get a lot out of the first couple of chapters, plus the many references to articles written on the subject, but don't expect to find the other chapters easy. Using my background in simulation systems, I can say that HLA seems to have been very well thought out, based on real-life simulation systems, and is therefore not trivial. But that's what makes it interesting, and the book so far lives up to that.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, but could be better.
Review: This book covers a lot of the basics of what HLA is but contains holes. After reading this book three times I am still left with questions as to how to implement HLA in an application. I found the IEEE specification included on the CD helpful in filling in some of the holes in the book, but still have unanswered questions as to how to implement the HLA. The examples in the book are implemented in Java and the code is included on the CD in source and executable format, however I would have been happier if the examples were implemented in C++ as well. This is a good starting point, in the absence of alternatives, but could be better.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, but could be better.
Review: This book covers a lot of the basics of what HLA is but contains holes. After reading this book three times I am still left with questions as to how to implement HLA in an application. I found the IEEE specification included on the CD helpful in filling in some of the holes in the book, but still have unanswered questions as to how to implement the HLA. The examples in the book are implemented in Java and the code is included on the CD in source and executable format, however I would have been happier if the examples were implemented in C++ as well. This is a good starting point, in the absence of alternatives, but could be better.
Rating:
Summary: Will do the job in the absence of alternatives
Review: This is the book to read if you need to understand all the tech speak around the HLA. It gives a good introduction to the topic and if you then attend one of the courses at DMSO, you have a good enough grounding to start developing your own wrapped simulations. A background in programming concepts and simulation is very helpful.
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