I saw one copy of this at Powell's Technical Books in Portland yesterday, and picked it up, figuring it was new. It was--just published in the last few weeks. I haven't delved into it as much I would like, but that doesn't matter here because I carefully reviewed the contents before purchase.

So: why buy this book? If you're working with Flash and ActionScript 3.0 currently, you know the Flash world is a moving target that changes very rapidly, and the main reason for this is the addition of open-source tools and "classes." This book gives us a needed status-check on what's currently available, how to get it and how to use it.

In my case, I was mostly interested in Papervision3D, the Google add-on that has rapidly gone from cute curiosity to must-have in every Flash developer's bag of tricks. However, you don't really need this book for Papervision3D--there's plenty of documentation available online.

Likewise, if all you really want to know is how to implement SWFObject (a popular add-in that lets you update a Flash element by updating your html or external text file), or how to make Flex work with XML, you may not need or want this book.

But if you like to read about some fun new stuff that's available and that you might like to explore--all of kinds of mashups, FUSE, HAXE, Red5 video--then grab this book right away. It's readable, fresh, and informative--like most Friends of ED books. Also like most other Friends of ED books, it will rapidly go out of date as the moving target moves on!