Graphics and Web Page Design by Laura Lemay, John Duff and James
Mohler (Prentice Hall, ÂŁ49.95, ISBN 1 57521 125 4) is a readable guide to
creating pages that do not confuse style with content, and which are quick and
easy for users to read. This is important, because many Web authors forget that
most surfers have slow modems. HTML, the language of the Web, is concerned
mainly with the logical structure of a page, and relies on settings defined in
the reader’s browser to interpret this structure typographically. This way of
doing things can be very frustrating for graphics designers, who should find
this book a very useful guide.

Despite such limitations, it is the graphical user interface provided by a
succession of browsers that has been the key to the Web’s success, and this
interface is daily growing more sophisticated. Adding graphics to Web pages used
to mean simply incorporating static images encoded as JPEG or GIF files. Today,
pages can include more dynamic images, such as animation and virtual reality
“worlds” which contain three-dimensional objects. In 3D Graphics and VRML
2 (Prentice Hall, ÂŁ37.50, ISBN 1 57521 143 2), Laura Lemay, Justin
Couch and Kelly Murdock cover the use of the Virtual Reality Modelling Language
(VRML). They concentrate on using modelling packages (included on an
accompanying CD) to build 3D worlds, rather than doing the whole thing from
scratch. Given the formidable nature of VRML, this sensible approach means there
is enough in the book to get you started.

A more general approach to adding dynamic content to the Web is to use the
Java programming language, which allows small programs (applets) to be embedded
in a Web page and downloaded the first time it is viewed. The language has huge
potential. More than 40 books on Java have appeared in the past year, most of
them poorly written monsters. But the SunSoft Java series is excellent, and
David Geary and Alan McLellan’s Graphic Java: Mastering the AWT
(Prentice Hall, ÂŁ25.50, ISBN 0 13 565847 0) is a model of clear technical
writing. The AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit), the basis of the Java graphical user
interface, has gained a reputation for being difficult to program. Graphic
Java is the best guide I have seen so far.

Because Java is a general purpose programming language, it can also be used
as the basis for creating and managing entire Web sites, as described in The
Netscape LiveWire Sourcebook (Wiley, ÂŁ24.95, ISBN 0 471 15605 1). Ted
Coombs and his fellow authors illustrate the use of Netscape’s LiveWire
development environment, covering Java, JavaScript and Netscape plug-ins. This
is serious sleeves-rolled-up stuff, for experienced Web site administrators
only. It is also specifically about the way Netscape sees the Web.

Alongside Java in the race to establish standards for the Web is Microsoft’s
ActiveX technology. Warren Ernst’s Presenting ActiveX (Prentice Hall,
ÂŁ27.95, ISBN 1 57521 156 4) is a good overview of the Microsoft approach,
based on the well-proven OLE technology originally designed for document
management in the Windows environment. ActiveX is not for the technically
squeamish, and although Ernst and his guest authors talk successfully about the
concepts involved, the lack of depth does rather suggest that they are reluctant
to expose the internal workings, for fear of frightening us off.

Finally, the Swiss researchers Nadia Magnenat Thalmann and Daniel Thalmann
have edited Interactive Computer Animation (Prentice Hall,
ÂŁ39.95, ISBN 0 13 518309 X), a roundup of mostly academic papers from
experts in the field. It makes fascinating reading for anyone who wants to look
under the hood.

In The Night is Large: Collected Essays 1938-1995 (St Martin’s
Press, $29.95, ISBN 0 312 14380 X), Gardner has gathered 47 of his essays
from a career spanning seven decades, giving each piece a new introduction, and
a postscript for updates or replies to critics. Whatever subject takes his
fancy, it is Gardner’s gift to be wildly knowledgeable and entertaining about
it. His work reveals a clarity and ease of style for which most writers would
kill.

The scope of this new collection is huge. To give you a flavour, Gardner
breezes through artificial languages, reviews the puzzles in Ulysses,
discusses Heisenberg, quantum weirdness, superstrings and the Twin Paradox,
analyses mathematical realism and proofs of God, and writes a highly negative
review of his own confessional work The Whys of a Philosophical
Scrivener.

Although normally restrained and courteous, sometimes Gardner boils over. If
he is fired by one passion, it is that he hates anything bogus. He is expert at
debunking pseudoscience and claims of the paranormal, and here he includes
essays demolishing quack therapies, fraudulent mediums, Sigmund Freud’s bizarre
beliefs in numerology, and UFOs. It is inspired and inspiring stuff, the perfect
antidote to millennial madness.

The Night Is Large will thrill Gardner enthusiasts, for whom much of
the material here will probably be new. And for those who yet don’t know
Gardner, there could be no better introduction to a master of our time.

The belief that there is an unknown species of hominoid primate, living in the wilderness areas of the northwestern US, is an enduring one. Drawing upon years of apocryphal reports, and disputable physical evidence, the consensus among believers is that Bigfoot is a nomadic, nocturnal, foul-smelling, omnivorous ape-like creature, at least six feet tall, powerful enough to hurl boulders, yet shy and nonaggressive. The nonbelievers protest that the evidence is nowhere near conclusive.

Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship, naturalist Robert Pyle set out to explore the myths, evidence and hoaxes that comprise Bigfoot culture. In Where Bigfoot Walks, he presents a narrative that combines an account of his Bigfoot fieldwork, a compelling plea for ecological sanity, and a meditation on the nature of human belief.

Pyle has trekked into Bigfoot country (the “dark divide” of northern Washington state), interviewed Native Americans about their tribal traditions, attended conferences, and met with many of the major characters, asking the obvious questions on our behalf: if the sightings are as abundant as claimed, why hasn’t a Bigfoot yet been captured? Where are their bones? How do they get enough to eat? Where do they go in winter?

The believers respond with confident theories, suggesting that it’s up to nonbelievers to prove the negative. But, as Pyle says, the discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in Cuba shows it is hard to prove extinction or absolute absence.

For some people, however, such as Grover Krantz of Washington State University’s Department of Anthropology, belief is not the issue. “I don’t ‘believe’ in Bigfoot”, he says, “I have certain knowledge that causes me to ‘conclude’.” Even so, the authenticity of some tracks which most impress Krantz has been convincingly challenged by analyses in Skeptical Inquirer. And so it goes on.

Where Bigfoot Walks could just as well be about UFO abductions, crop circles or anything else from the paranormal catalogue. Given that so many people desperately want to believe in “mysteries”, the question is whether such things have any external reality, or whether they are cultural artefacts. On this issue, Pyle remains openminded, and truly sceptical.

The Bigfoot industry, however, rumbles on: entire towns depend on the Bigfoot-spotters for their livelihoods, and now the inevitable Internet mailing list and World Wide Web pages. In Pyle’s view, mysteries like Bigfoot give shape to many lives.

Where Bigfoot Walks is a pleasure, although at times Pyle’s writing is over-colourful. But whether he is helping a slug across the road, or discussing the colour of bear excrement, Pyle rejoices in the beauty of the world, and communicates his enthusiasm and expert knowledge with a rare modesty. His book should appeal to anyone with an interest in why people want to believe in the supernatural when they already live in a world bursting with natural wonders.