I bought this book because I wanted to learn how to make my own utilitied in MAXScript. I only had a very basic idea of MAXScript when I started reading the book. My background knowledge in other languages helped, but I do feel that the book was a better primer than the official documentation that comes with MAX.
Within a week of reading the book I felt more comfortable with the MAX online documentation and was able to start my own project ( [...]) that has already been featured by 3D industry sites.
The book isn't as advanced as I'd like and is low on reference material, but it good for examples. The major downer is that it hasn't been updated for the most recent versions of MAXScript. Since I use 3ds 2011, I wish it was a little up-to-date.