Trilogy Controversy (Part 1)

George Lucas' iconic Star Wars Trilogy was a big hit with loyal fans the world over, yet there are always critics who read the original novels by Alan Dean Foster and felt strongly that the order of screening did not conform to the actual story line depicted in the books. Lucas, of course, had his reasons to film series IV (Star Wars), V (The Empire Strikes Back) and VI (Return of the Jedi) as the classic trilogy in the pre-90s...

before going on to produce series I (The Phantom Menace), II (Attack of the Clones) and III (Revenge of the Sith) as the next set of Trilogy films.

Similarly, there are people who may be confused about my series of PCB-RE books and perhaps questioned the need for a trilogy instead of just one volume. I'll have to admit that when I first started out to write about this topic, a trilogy is far from my mind, let alone a sequel book. After all, I was just starting out as a relatively unknown indie author with a passion to share my knowledge of 15 years in this niche field, something which other PCB-RE engineers might not want to do or thought it too big an undertaking to worth their time or effort.

To be honest, The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering was published without any fanfare or advertising, and with much trepidation. Thankfully, the response was encouraging with readers who posted their comments on Amazon, one by a J. Ryan I thought was pretty cool:

Reverse engineering PCB's is to electronic circuit boards what hacking is to computer software... something people do, but no one admits to doing it, LOL. 

Mr Ng not only does it, but he lays out a very clear and systematic approach to the entire process. I am self-taught in this field, and it was a real joy to find that someone had actually written an entire book on the subject. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic.

Even now as I look back, the emotions still run high to know that there are those who do appreciate my hard work, though admittedly I made an early blunder as an inexperienced author to have my book published in full-colors, and consequently priced beyond the reach of the average reader due to high printing cost. I realized it soon enough and went to work to produce a non-color edition that seen a wider readership.

I was quite content to leave things as is and went to write some other genre of books, co-authored with my wife as a way of saying thanks to her for supporting me in pursuing my lifelong writing passion. But as fate would have it otherwise...

(To be continued)