BOOKS

but also by an abstract number in Chenii- cal Abstracts or Ref: Zh. Khim. Also in- cluded in this part of the volume is a key to abbreviations for solvents and func- tional groups and a glossary containing structural diagrams for some of the more complex organic substrates and products. Perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses of this type of tabular presentation is the constant need to move back and forth be- tween the main table and the supporting glossaries. This is particularly relevant since many of the abbreviations are non- standard (for example, c stands for chlo- roform), and for complex structures it is necessary to constantly refer to a glossary for structures which are identified only by numbers in the main table. However, this tabulation is a commendable feat and many will find this section of the book by far the most useful.

The treatment of hydrosilylation in the first six chapters is largely by detailed ex- amples, and consequently it would not be a good introduction for the novice and should not be used as a textbook. How- ever. the wealth of information which is presented in this volume should be of tremendous value to the practitioner of the hydrosilylation reaction. whether it be in an industrial or academic setting. As such, this book is an indispensable refer- ence source.

Mark Fink Department of Chemistry

Tulane University New Orleans, LA (USA)

Iron- Carbene Complexes. (Series: Scripts in Inorganic and Organo- metallic Chemistry, Vol. 1 .) Edited by W Petz. Springer, Heidelberg, 1993. 202pp., paperback DM 68.00. -ISBN 3-540-56258-3

The celebrations were premature! Any- one who hoped that this new series from the Gmelin-Institut fur Anorganische Chemie would make it possible to build up a “home Gmelin” at a realistic and affordable cost will be bitterly disappoint- ed. The initial concept, which is again stated in the preface to the first volume of this series. sounds very good: “...the new Gmelin series will review selected areas of inorganic and organometallic chemistry in textbook style. It will provide the lec- turer, the advanced student. and the re- search chemist with a digest of the main

features of each topic.” As the first topic the publishers have chosen iron-carbene and iron-vinylidene complexes in which the iron atom also has a q5 ligand (C,H, or one of its derivatives). This is a sensible restriction when one considers that the systematic preparation and study of Fischer carbene complexes has now been going on for nearly thirty years. and it is no longer realistic to expect the whole of this extensive subject, with all the possibil- ities of central metal atom and substitu- tion pattern. to be covered in a single monograph. The area treated here corre- sponds exactly to the volume of the origi- nal Gmelin-ffundbuclz der Anorgunischen und Mriallor~unisclien Cheniie with the title “Organoiron Compounds B16a”, containing about 260 pages.

To anyone familiar with the density of data in Gmelin. the task of producing a “digest of the main features” of this sub- ject must seem rather like trying to write a short summary of the national postcode index. Practically all the shortening need- ed to compress the subject into 200 pages for the new publication Iron-Carhenr Complexes has been achieved by taking out the formula index completely and eliminating all the literature references and the journal citations from the text of the original Gmelin (although, curiously, on the bottom line of p. 168 the last of the references has survived the massacre of its brothers).

However, this has severely reduced the book’s potential readership. Specialists working on iron or other carbene com- plexes, after a first nibble at a topic, need to be given direct access to the original publications. One can perhaps envisage the book being used as a quick reference source for spectroscopic and X-ray struc- tural data, but this use is greatly hindered by the incompleteness of the numerical data and the lack of a detailed overall in- dex. Lecturers and students seeking a gen- eral overview of carbene complexes (or even one confined to iron as the central metal atom) will quickly abandon this book, since despite the declared aim of producing a work in “textbook style”, this is clearly not that but a collection of data. The few general comments included at the beginnings of individual chapters are ei- ther too superficial or so brief that they cannot be understood without relevant previous knowledge.

In this connection one must also men- tion the many printing errors. In many cases parentheses are either missing or too many in number, and more seriously there

are numerous spelling mistakes and incor- rect formulas, sometimes altering the meaning. Examples are “RHC=CNCH,” instead of RHC=NCH, (p. 32) and ‘ T p - (CO)(2D)FeC=CH” instead of Cp(C0)- (2D)FeC=CH (p. 5 9 , and on page 122 a rotational barrier is given as 7712 kJ/mol instead of 77 2 kJ/mol. The “one-pro- tein resonances” referred to on page 104 are presumably one-proton resonances.

There are also many errors in the figures. In Figures XI1 and XITI (p. 54) the cyclo- pentadienyl ligand is shown as “H,C,” in- stead of H,C,, and the Fp-containing side- chain of compound XXVIII on page98 has an extra carbon atom. Although errors such as these only cause a shake of the head, the incorrect caption “(S,S)-chira- phos” under Figure IV (p. 184), which ac- tually shows the R,R isomer, is inexcus- able. Other errors that need no further comment are the description of the diaste- reomeric complexes VII and VIII (p, 27) as “enantiomeric cations”, and the label- ing of the abscissa in the figure on page 55 as “Wavenumber in nm”.

Another source of annoyance is the lack of a glossary explaining the abbreviations used in the book, as also are the repeated explanations of familiar compound name abbreviations (e.g., dppe on pages 7, 10, 47, 178. 181, and 182). and the use of the same abbreviation for different groups (e.g., Fp* is used to represent (C,Me,)- (CO),Fe on pp. 104, 124, and 125. (C,H,Me)(CO),Fe on pp. 117 and 123, and (C,H,)(CO),Fe on pp. 123 and 124). The cross-references too show little sign of having been carefully checked. As well as references to the wrong chapters (pp. 11 4, 126, 158, 167), there are others mention- ing chapters that do not even exist (pp. 152, 1 58, 197) and methods of prepa- ration that are not given (“Method IV” on pp. 118, 121). These and many other errors are quite unacceptable, especially in a book of only 202 pages.

The verdict after looking through Iron- Carhene Complexes, which is also to be regarded as an initial sample for the new series Scripts in Inorganic and Organome- tallic Chemistry. is clear. By carrying out some intensive work on correcting the er- rors, providing a formula index for the whole work, and including all the ref- erences to original publications, the au- thors and the publishers would be per- forming a valuable service. not least to themselves.

Gerhurd Roth Fakultat fur Chemie

der Universitit Konstanz (FRG)

.25/O Angrw. Cliem. Inl. Ed. E q I . 1994. 33, No. 18