Macromedia have recently launched Flash 5 upon the world, which we shall be reviewing shortly, so many of you might think it strange that I choose now to review a book entitled "Flash 4 Magic."

Flash 4 Magic however is no ordinary book it contains a total of twenty-one Flash projects or tutorials. These projects can be customised, adapted and added to, if necessary. The book provides inspiration and also an insight in to the actual flash development process.

According to the blurb, a team of seven developers and designers, who are among today's best Flash designers have developed this book, and although they are extremely talented and certainly capable, to make a statement such as being among today's best Flash designers is a little egotistical.

Getting back to the book, this book is not for the complete novice it requires some basic knowledge of the Macromedia Flash software product in order to understand the terminology utilised not to mention the actual content.

Given even a little Flash knowledge, however, this book really does become an invaluable learning tool, in it is really not fair to say this is simply a book. Flash 4 Magic comes complete with a CD-Rom which is actually worth more than the asking price of the book in my opinion. This CD-Rom contains all the source code the book utilises in it's projects/tutorials.

Learning something new then becomes a case of simply loading the source files from the CD-Rom and following the steps outlined in the book. It really is as easy as this and believe me this is one of the best and most fun ways to learn some of the techniques associated with Flash development that I have come across as the usual task of trying to create stunning graphic images is removed, thus allowing you to learn the techniques and principles rather than the graphic design element.

Although this book will not appeal to everyone, no book ever could, it will appeal to an extremely large number of Flash developers looking for inspiration and a base on which to quickly and easily expand their expertise. As the CD-Rom that comes with the product is worth more than the actual book, can you really go wrong, I think not.