Lev Manovich's _The Language of New Media_ has been well received, and hailed by reviewers as, for example, 'the most rigorous definition to date of new media', and 'the first rigorous and far-reaching theorization of the subject'. [1] It is an ambitious project, (necessarily) broad in scope, as it attempts to provide, as the back cover tells us, 'a systematic and rigorous theory of new media'. Rather than retread ground and re-hail the rigour that has already been covered and hailed by others, I will identify here some of the aspects of Manovich's work that I feel don't quite work (whether that is due to my own subjective, stylistic preferences or prejudices, or due to what I consider to be omissions or oversights), as well as the parts which seem to make assumptions or which gloss over issues which might be explored in more detail than they are currently. This is not to say this will be a negative review -- far from it -- Manovich's book is interesting, useful, and, while it is already three years old, still timely. Almost undoubtedly it will be revised for a second edition (updates of Chapter 3 and Chapter 6 have recently appeared on Manovich's website). Hopefully, some of the points identified here will be addressed in a future revision.

In seeking to provide a critique of the whole work, I have identified some of the ways in which Manovich's prose doesn't quite (to me, anyway) yield the expected meaning. This may be a fussiness on my part over stylistics, as the anticipated meaning is usually to be found some time later. And while I have suggested that Manovich has undertaken an ambitious project, on a task akin to mucking out the Augean stables, at the same time I have suggested there are places where the book has not quite done enough: places where I would like to see some further discussion, some clarification in passages where, for me, the argument seems to move too quickly. Elsewhere, I have identified areas left unexplored that might usefully have been developed. This is not to, as Enid and Becky from _Ghost World_ might have it, 'accentuate the negative', but is simply a subjective critique of an ambitious work. Overall, Manovich's book *is* useful and thought-provoking, even if it does contain some irritations in style and pacing. I have already ordered a library copy, and I look forward to a revised second edition.