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Originally posted by CornedBee
The "Special Effects" starts at the very basics, so even a beginner can use it, but it advances rapidly, so beware. It also teaches you a bit about how you create 2D games using DirectGraphics and take advantage of the possibilities 3D hardware offers you.
I read bad things about "Zen" at Amazon.
I read "Beginning Direct3D Game Programming" and it sucks.
The "SE" is very good and up to date. But it doesn't cover general game programming topics such as physics, AI, collision detection etc. I recommend LaMothe's book for that. It also covers the other DirectX components (Input, Sound, Music, Draw) in great detail.
The "Gems" books are advanced. They contain many many optimization tricks and programming techniques.
The Gems books are exactly that, gems. Ive got all three, and they certainly do give you great ideas =).