First of all, the good points: by and large, these books are highly accurate and reasonably error-free, which is not at all surprising, since these are official course guides straight from Cisco's mouth; they get their facts across straight and succinctly, and are unlike most other certification books in that they're all deeply concerned with teaching you how to do your job properly; they're packed with on-the-job examples, and the experience shines through when it comes to teaching you the important bits, not only showing you the "how" and the "why", but quite often showing you how each technology and protocol fits into the larger picture.

The writing, unfortunately, is much the same from book to book--they're all extremely textbooky. There isn't a wasted sentence to be found here; every word counts, making the information-to-text ratio higher than almost any other certification book you're likely to find on the market.

Furthermore, the questions at the end of each chapter are essay-style, not multiple-choice. Cisco has made it quite clear what their teaching objectives are: "If you know the material well enough, you don't need us to tell you what's on the exam--you'll know." As such, each book has to be read and thoroughly understood in its entirety in order to guarantee a passing score. This means that if you're willing to devote the time and effort, you'll pass without a hitch--exam slackers can look elsewhere.

In short, this set isn't an easy read--not even close. It isn't for those who barely passed their CCNA or people who don't routinely work with networks. But it is astoundingly comprehensive and error-free by certification guide standards, and the effort you put into grinding through will be richly rewarded by a high passing score and a good foundation of CCNP concepts that will set you up for an excellent job--and perhaps even your CCIE. --William Steinmetz