Multi-author texts present a number of problems for editors and readers. The editor, in preparing the book needs to maintain even quality and adequate crossreferencing, and to ensure that all chapters are produced to the deadline. This latter problem ends up penalising the more conscientious writers, as their chapters, completed on time, are viewed as the most out of date by the reader, owing to the editor having waited for more recalcitrant (overcommitted) authors. The reader is often faced with a volume of variable quality and antiquity, with no clear cohesion. Unfortunately, Vol. 15: Molecular Biology edited by Abraham Marcus suffers from many of these drawbacks Clearly, a volume concerned with Plant Molecular Biology was inevitable in this long-running series. However, it is difficult to detect a strategic overview or rationale behind this book. For example, why three chapters on chloroplasts and only one on mitochondria? Why a complete chapter on thaumatins, and none on plant defence responses? Why chapters on viroids and DNA viruses but none on RNA viruses? Moreover, the most serious criticism of the whole book is its gestation period. Throughout the book. the latest references are 1988, and in many of the chapters 1987. While this may not be so crucial for a chapter reviewing the general features of the plant nuclear genome, a chapter on plant transformation which is three years out of date is of very little use. Furthermore, some poor editing has left Agrohacrerium-mediated plant transformation poorly covered in general, but has allowed two accounts of the leaf-disc transformation technique to appear.
The volume starts well, with an excellent introduction to plant gene regulation, by Okamura and Goldberg, crammed with useful tables and equations. This is followed by a good review of the general properties of transposons by Vodkin. The four organelle chapters, and that on storage proteins, are comprehensive, and contain much useful information. The next two chapters are weaker. The chapter on stress, by Ho and Sachs, suffers by omission, and bias. Heat stress is covered extensively, but other stresses are