My first thought when I got this book in the mail was, "What is H.O.T. Chess?" Using mnemonic devices like H.O.T. Chess (highly original thinking chess), F.A.C.E. (fear, allegro, consistency, enjoyment) and T.O.D.O. (tenacious, objective, dangerous, original), to name just a few, the author immediately alienated me by being a bit too cute. Readers who like cute things will no doubt disagree with me, but, personally, it was all just a bit much.

My next gripe concerns Mr. Motwani's use of prayer and religious symbolism in the confines of a chess book. As a religious person myself, I have an extensive library on all aspects of Mysticism, Judaism, Hinduism, Western Magic, Buddhism, Christianity and Muslim traditions. Though my interest in these areas of thought is obvious, I avoid mixing them with my chess writings.

Once again, some readers will find these passages moving and useful, but others may be somewhat put off. Here is one example: "In 1924, he said: 'Where does the strength come from to see the race to its end? It comes from within.' I believe he was speaking about the Kingdom of God within each of us."

So far the book seems a bit odd, doesn't it? This impression deepens with the addition of chess problems, horrible poetry, logic problems, decoding sequences (I didn't see anything about alien abduction but I wouldn't be surprised if it was there), the author (who appears to be the nicest man on Earth) calling almost everyone his "friend," and...well, I've kicked the poor guy around enough; time to look at what's good about H.O.T. Chess.

Though there are many things to attack in this book, these items end up forming an original package that actually manifests a tremendous amount of charm. A lot of work and original thought went into its creation, and the excellent (and highly entertaining) games, good notes, instructional content, discussion on some aspects of theory, great stories, humor and who knows what else actually make reading it quite worthwhile.

Pick it up if you want to look at something fuzzy, warm, inconsistent and unexpected. Expect a teddy bear to come with the sequel. Who knows, H.O.T. Chess the movie may follow.

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