If I were looking for an example of how to write an opening book, I wouldn't have to look much further than this one. This book is topical, well devised and produced, and covers the subject matter authoritatively and honestly.

This is a revision of a 1993 book of the same name by the same authors. I had taken the Accelerated Dragon up about that time because I was tired of keeping open the option of getting into the Najdorf via move orders like 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 and 1.e4 c5 2.Ne2 and 3.Nc3. I came across the original work and was fascinated by the authors' obvious love of the opening but their willingness to point out white's best attempts, even when they flew in the face of established theory. Fortunately, the authors continue that policy in this new book, and in many cases they even up the ante and do even better.

The book is basically split into three categories: lines where white plays Nc3 against the Accelerated Dragon proper (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6), lines where white plays the Maroczy Bind (typically 5.c4), and miscellaneous forms of the mythical beast (such as the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon with 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6). Silman and Donaldson are of the opinion that the Maroczy Bind is the sternest test of the Accelerated Dragon, and I would agree. Indeed, one of the merits of using the Accelerated Dragon only against white move orders with an early Nc3 is the side-stepping of the Bind.

In terms of coverage, the book's 320 pages break down into 124 pages on the Nc3 systems, 145 pages on the Maroczy Bind, and 51 pages on the miscellaneous, introduction, and index. The book is 94 pages longer than its predecessor, and, like the earlier book, provides complete coverage of all lines rather than the repertoire coverage that's become so popular with opening books.

The authors have done a decent job of updating the many changes to theory in the past five years. Popular variations, such as the Uogele (5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 0-0) have been expanded (in fact, it now merits its own chapter). In the Maroczy Bind portion of the book, greater attention is provided to the Gurgenidze (5.c4 Nf6 6.Nc3 d6 followed by 7...Nxd4), which has become the primary method for fighting the Bind among high-level players.

In the Uogele, for example, the authors pinpoint the critical variation 8.Bb3 a5 9.a4 Ng4 10.Qxg4 Nxd4 11.Qh4 Nxb3 12.cxb3 Bf6 13.Qg3! d6 14.Nd5! rather than pedestrian white tries like 13.Bg5?! and 14.Rb1?! that have been essayed in tournament practice. This is exactly what you hope for from authors - that they go beyond just parroting back a bunch of game fragments and instead actually figure out the best lines of play for both sides.

From the practical perspective, I was pleased by the better coverage provided the Classical variation (5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Be2 0-0). While not that common at higher levels, it crops up quite a bit in weekend tournament play. In the last edition, after 8.f4 the authors recommended 8...d5, which I never really trusted. As a consequence, I found myself having to buy a book on the Dragon proper (In my case, Christopher Ward's WINNING WITH THE SICILIAN DRAGON. Click to see Watson's review on the second edition of that book.) to find a line I was comfortable with. In this edition, the authors have trashed (literally, I might add) 8...d5 and instead provided a method for playing 8...d6 that doesn't lead to the Dragon proper. For good measure, they've even thrown in 8...e5!? as a new idea. They've also provided some other new ideas in this section that make it more useful than in the previous book.

From my own perspective, I was disappointed to see that the authors don't have much confidence in 7...Ng4 against the Maroczy Bind (5.c4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3 Ng4 8.Qxg4 Nxd4 9.Qd1). This was Larsen's favorite (one of my chess heroes!), and the likes of Botvinnik dabbled in it too. Some time back, Silman wrote a survey for the NEW IN CHESS YEARBOOK series suggesting that black may have rehabilitated the line with 9...e5 10.Nb5 0-0 11.Qd2 Qe7 12.0-0-0 Nxb5 13.cxb5 d5 14.exd5 Rd8! (a suggestion of English GM Peter Wells). Unfortunately, a finesse by GM Grigory Serper seems to have put the line back on the junk heap for black.

Interestingly, this particular variation provides one of the few puzzling examples of commentary that I've found in the book. The authors comment, on the choice available to white on his 10th move in the above line, "Not so long ago 10.Nb5 was considered to be a virtual refutation of Black's system and 10.Bd3 was thought to be relatively harmless. How times and opinions have changed! Now 10.Bd3 has become the move that most players with Black hate to see." While that may be the case, the authors seem to give pretty good lines against 10.Bd3, while, as noted above, at least the line with 10.Nb5 and 10...Qe7 is on life support for black.

The only complaint I had with the original volume was that the binding quickly cracked in several places, making it difficult to keep the book together. This volume seems to have everything in order in terms of production, with a nice introduction, index, paper, and printing. If the binding holds together until the next revision, it may yet get a perfect 10.