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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

> (My thanks to Manning for providing a review copy.)

In England that line needs to go at the front of the review, but even so the reviewer is open about the relationship.

He seems legit, unless this page is just a pack of lies, which is quite possible I suppose: https://sagecreek.wordpress.com/about/

No he doesn't. Si Dunn only gives out 4 & 5 star reviews with the vast majority being 5 star. Si Dunn also isn't a programmer, he's a non fiction author and professional book reviewer. He's a shill, his reviews are all the same formulaic BS. He doesn't understand enough about writing code to actually review the book and instead fills space by using author quotes or lists the definitions of what the technology is.

In fairness to Si Dunn, he DOES disclaim on the linked about page: "NOTE: I am not paid by publishers to review and tout their books. And I do not guarantee to publish a review about a particular book. If I do not like a book, I will not review it here. Writing a book requires significant time, effort, and expense, and I will not trash someone else’s writing."

If only there was a way to review the reviewers...

He sells the books after reviewing them. He gets paid.

From another review of his: "I have had a long-term, love-ignore relationship with Node.js. I have taken Node classes, read Node books, and tinkered with Node programming both on Windows and Linux machines. Sometimes I have loved working with Node.js. Other times, I have ignored it for months at a stretch while I rush around trying out other choices and development distractions: Clojure, Erlang, Grails, Hadoop, and Ember.js, for example — the list goes on and on."

Sounds like he programs too.

Look, I could be wrong. I just find it very hard to believe that the man who read and understood the content of over 30 programming and web development books, has only come up with this http://www.sagecreekproductions.com as his company's web page. His github shows he started the first couple pages of a node book, but didn't get past the init commit. https://github.com/sidunn. I don't buy it, and I'm going to stop responding because there is more than enough information out there for people to make their own conclusions. But it's disingenuous at best to have this man review development books.

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