Others say...

"Superb, Practical Advice"
Practical is without doubt the best way to describe 'Studio Techniques.' Christiansen has written a book filled with very practical and powerful advice that is sure to delight. Learning to create effects is fundamentally all about two things:

1) Learning to think like a visual effects artist

and

2) Learning to think like After Effects

Christiansen does a superb job of melding these two together. His examples, while very useful for their specific results alone, are perhaps more useful in learning how to approach problems and solve them in the After Effects paradigm.

As an added bonus, 'Studio Techniques' is also riddled with very useful tips and notes that provide additional creative insight and warnings on oddities that occur, their cause, and how to solve them.

"Turbo Chage Your Compositing"
This is NOT a book to help you create your first AE project. You must already be comfortable with the program before you open the cover of this book. But, once you can walk, this book will help you run. You will learn the dark secrets of the hollywood masters of the mystic art of compositing.

"A must read!"
I found the 6.5 edition so useful that I didn't hesitate for a second to order the 7.0 edition (which came out two months after I bought the first edition.)
If you buy it and can later claim that you didn't get your money worth, you should get your eyes examined!

"After Effects 7 Studio Techniques: An Expert Guide from an After Effects Expert"
Buy this book; its cost (particularly here at Amazon) is trivial compared to the software, and you'll get some important independent opinions and expert advice that, from what I understand, isn't available anywhere else.

In general, I've found the book to be pedagogical, informative and entertaining at the same time. What makes the book unique is Mark Christiansen's opinions. You get the voice of a great deal of experience, giving an independent evaluation of features and organization of After Effects itself, and how this impacts real-world usage. Reading that how certain features were implemented were "weird" was a pleasant surprise in a book published by Adobe Press. In contrast with the user manuals and canned tutorial materials, the book does not automatically assume that how After Effects works is the best way to accomplish certain tasks---in some instances, other software applications are better (e.g. rotoscoping), and Christiansen doesn't hesistate to point that out. What makes the book so useful is that you get an evaluation of After Effects, instead of an automatic assumption that it must be all things to all people. That being said, Christiansen does give it a fair Shake (pun intended :), and the general thrust is that After Effects is no younger sibling to node-based compositors, and it's capable of a lot more than typical users think.

The other major strength to the book is that it's NOT a user manual. Those books, and many about how to use software in general, are feature-descriptive, and organized like the software program in how things are explained. This certainly makes the organization easy to follow (and, I daresay, easier on the authors to write), but isn't necessarily useful for working professionals. What Christiansen has done is give his take on what After Effects can do, as related to a real production environment, and then describes how to do it. Again, it's his evaluative paradigm coming into play here, as he's made a number of decisions on what to cover. This is particularly evident at the beginning, as he explains all of the basic features as relating to how they influence real production. It's eminently practical, and an extremely useful addition to any set of reference materials, since it provides a real-work-driven guide to the entire program.

The shortcomings to the book are few, and ultimately may just be matters of taste. The flipside to having so many opinions is that people will inevitably disagree. My personal preference is to try to have all of the information and opinions at my disposal, which I'm then free to accept or reject, but others may find his opinionated style to be too judgmental; you have been warned. Also, the choice of topics in this book is, as clearly stated in the introduction and its subtitle "definitive guide to creating visual effects", heavily weighted toward visual effects. You will not learn much more about the traditional motion graphics, such as how to apply text effects, than what's in the Classroom-in-a-Book targeted toward absolute beginners. As such, entitling the text "Studio Techniques" may be a bit broader than the book actually delivers. And, finally, the language is strongly weighted toward the jargon in the visual effects community, and is used from the beginning of the book, which total beginners may find somewhat difficult to navigate at the outset.

That being said, I strongly recommend this book to anyone using After Effects at all. It's a detailed reference with a lot of information that will teach you how After Effects is operating beneath the hood. And all of this information, really the entire book, are geared practically toward getting the job done in a real production environment. That will surely be useful, no matter how you choose to operate the program. And, to me, the independent (and entertaining) opinions are extraordinarily valuable in judging both what After Effects can do, and how well it does them.

Overall, I've read very few books about commercial software that are anywhere near as good. It will be a well-used reference on my shelf for a long time to come.

"Excellent book!"
Excellent book! Good quality examples and excellent instruction for those who are looking for a slightly more advanced book and don't want to read 1/2 book on the interface. The author really knows his stuff and it's evident in the text. There are lost of useful things on the DVD too