Beginners will find themselves interested in HTML instantly. HTML Complete breaks passed the boundary of teaching programming through text. It comes off as more of a teacher than a text book - just like it should be.

Later on other topics such as Perl, ASP, Java, and much more are introduced after a significant portion of HTML is covered. While those topics are left in the dark, they do not hinder the overall feel of the book and the knowledge it shares.

HTML Deprecated
This book is not bad, but by the author's own admission, much of what is being explained is deprecated. The book is quite good at telling you what NOT to use, but keeps referring the reader to Chapt 16 (CSS). Unfortunately the CSS chapter does not show all the correct ways to implement the deprecated features (use of justification - left, right, center - in tables, for example).

One nice feature in the book was the "Widely Supported" yes/no indicator for HTML syntax in the Appendix A.

I think the author should have spent more time on non-deprecated usage of HTML and CSS, instead of saying "Here's how to do this, but don't do it this way." This book is probably useful to someone who is trying to READ older HTML code, but is not so useful for someone trying to write new HTML code.

In summary, although it has useful information surrounding the use of HTML, this book should probably be re-titled to "HTML Deprecated", or "Reading Deprecated HTML Code", or alternatively needs a much-expanded section on use of CSS.

Finally an affordable book with all the goodies
I have always been an advocate of the O'Reilly line of "...In a Nutshell" books but Sybex has tipped the scale. HTML Complete is a COMPLETE collection of markup that is easy to referrence when needed. The book is an easy (although long) read packed full of tips and tricks. Most importantly, the 1,000 page collection is under $20! Amazing.