Carlton Egremont III’s Mr. Bunny’s Big Cup o’ Java is, as you might guess from the title, not entirely a serious book about Java. The problem is, it’s not entirely clear on what it really is. It tries to be a parody of technical books, a satirical criticism of Java, and a humorous fictional tale all at once; it’s respectively mostly successful, partially successful, and not very successful.

The best parts in the book are the send-ups of tedious tech book conventions, like… well, the conventions:

Conventions Used in This Book

This book uses letters, numbers, punctuation, and diacritical marks to organize thoughts into words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Where appropriate, illustrations are used to organize important concepts into drawings of Mr. Bunny and Farmer Jake.

As I type that out, I realize it doesn’t look very funny in isolation, but in context, it works. The bulk of the book, though, which uses Mr. Bunny and Farmer Jake to explore Java on a trip through an allegorical landscape, is a lot less interesting, with too many forced jokes and too much deliberate zaniness.

Amusing in parts, but unamusing in a lot more.

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