A few years ago, there was an ad campaign by Burger King that was more or less "mud slinging" McDonalds. For a long time, I refused to eat at Burger King because of their snotty remarks on the commercials. I now eat in both places (when I'm not dieting :) I don't know that mud slinging is illegal, but I sure know that it's unethical and unfair. Maybe some of the wording here in this thread has been a bit harsh against Mortier, but everyone has his or her right to an opinion, too. The fact is, his books are inferior. There's no reason why we shouldn't warn people that they could spend their money better elsewhere. I don't consider that either a boycott or mud slinging. I consider it good advice for people about to put out a good deal of money on something they will come to discover was a bad decision. You see bad book reviews in the newspaper and on TV and at Amazon.com all the time, some of them even by big-time critics, slamming various books for their poor quality. It's the same way that you see bad movie reviews that advise you not to go see a certain film because it's a piece of junk and only gets one star or whatever and it's a wast of your time. This is no different. Melanie